Social Media: Who are You Following? {Review}

You’ve read them. 

The Facebook or Instagram posts that make you want to throw your phone and hide under the sofa.  The posts that the enemy uses to point fingers at you with claims that you aren’t enough and change must occur – to your living room decor, hips, children’s talents, reading selection, husband’s beard, shoes – to make you enough.

And without even noticing, each post we read or view is influencing us.

In her new book and guided journal, Who are You Following?, Sadie Robertson invites us to evaluate who we are following on these apps and how they influence us spiritually, monetarily, and emotionally.

Below I will share my favorite draws from the book to encourage all of us to think before pushing the “Follow” button.

Who Are You Following?

As a parent I continually talk to my children about their friend choices. It is so easy to recognize that who we hang out with is what we become.

But what about who we and our children follow on social media? Are we putting up the same safety guards or are we thinking because it isn’t face-to-face communication, it won’t affect us?

I love this quote from Sadie, “We need to be more intentional about what we are looking for so that we can be intentional about who we begin to follow.”

This begs us to ask the question, “Are we strategically thinking through the behaviors we should imitate before following someone or something?” Because if we think we can ignore some of a person’s behaviors while emulating other behaviors, we are lying to ourselves. Our brain can not separate the two.

How to Go from Liked to Loved?

While time and maturity have grown me in this area, I still sometimes get the urge to check the number of likes and comments. The enemy equips the numbers to my worth.

Sadie states, “People want so badly to be seen when their true desire is to be known.”

We all want to be loved to our core and to be loved despite our yuck. Sadly, we have determined that social media will fill this need. But as Sadie brilliantly points out, social media is a place to be seen, not known.

Even though I aspire to be authentic on social media, it is only those who live life with me who truly know me. And I praise God that they still love me.

The Comparison Trap

Eight years ago I shared “Why I am Contemplating Deleting My Facebook Account.” I was getting beat down with the “perfect mom” image on social media. While I confess that it was a “me” issue, the enemy was having a party in my mind as I read about other people’s successes, “perfect” children, and their “dream” life.

I love the reminders Sadie gives, “We often miss what God is doing for us right now because we’re turning and looking at what He’s doing for everybody else. … Confidence does not come from comparison, it does not come from a platform, and it does not even come from compliments. It comes from the One who made us.”

I became less and less confident as a mom, wife, and friend because I turned around looking at what God was doing for everyone else. I slowly forgot what God says about me and His purpose for me.

Who Are You Following?

So I ask you – and myself again, “Who are we following on social media?” Are they people and pages that lead us to truth, spiritual growth, and encouragement? Or have we unknowingly allowed “people” and causes into our lives who are stealing our joy. Those who are causing us to move away from imitating God and to imitating them.

To discover more, I invite you to pick up Sadie Robertson’s new book and guided journal Who Are You Following?. Check here for more info.

While my daughter (age 15) does not have a social media account, she and I will be using this book and journal to help her develop guidelines to pursue Jesus in our social media obsessed world.

Thank you to Sadie Robertson and FrontGateMedia for allowing me to share my honest review about these two books. As with any book, know that there are strengthens and weaknesses.  Read through each with a fine-tooth comb checking Scripture references to make sure that nothing is out of context.