The same could be said about Twitter and other Social Media apps!
Countless celebrities have written about how badly affected they have been by social media. There are numerous of cases of adolescents who have tried to harm themselves because of cyberbullying and many thousands who suffer from increased anxiety because of hostile posts.
Social media can do great harm, but it can also do a lot of good. The problem arises because there is no real human interaction and you can’t always see the damage you are doing. There’s something about the fact that if a person is not standing in front of you, that makes people willing to say things that they would never do face to face.
It’s wrong and it’s harming us. You can’t always see the damage you do, when you react within seconds in the heat of anger, and it’s hard to take your words back once you’ve put them out on social media.
Does the Bible talk about Social Media – no – it didn’t exist but it does talk about the principles behind it. Paul says in his letter to the Colossians “As God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (3:12)
We should practise this on social media as well as in our offline relationships. Compassion, gentleness, and kindness sound like the exact opposite of many social media posts. Many of which set out to actively attack the person posting. Rather we should rejoice in goodness, rather than negativity, share truth and love, rather than sharing unreliable facts or slander.
What you do and say on social media, matters. We should be especially careful of what we post online, and more importantly, how we treat others.
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with insight so that you may know how to respond to every person.” Col 4:6