Our Addiction to Entertainment

“We were made for wonder, but we’ve settled for entertainment. God built us to crave true, fulfilling joy. But for many of us, that God-given craving for heart satisfaction has driven us past God Himself, who was meant to be the fulfillment of those desires, toward a drug that dulls the ache of dissatisfaction and disappointment but never truly fulfills us.

I have a new purse that still makes me a little happy when I look at it. It is okay if I spend some money on a purse—and I did spend a bit too much on it. But it’s not necessarily a sin to spend too much on a new purse.

The sin is that I think it is going to satisfy some craving in me, apart from Jesus.

We’ve traded the wonder and satisfaction of a deep relationship with our Creator for Netflix, social media, and a new purse.”

Jennie Allen in her book “Nothing to Prove”.

What if our social media addiction and overconsumption of TV shows is just a symptom of a deeper root cause: the lack of a close relationship with God in our lives? I can not count the amount of times that I have used entertainment to escape my negative feelings. TV shows are my favorite escape. The last thing I want to do when I’m having a bad day or when I’m arguing with my husband is seek God’s counsel. I don’t want to spend time with God when I’m feeling angry or disappointed. It’s always so tempting to just escape for awhile and binge watch TV or spend a few hours on social media.

This is what I’ve learned so far: binge-watching TV feels good for a little while, but sooner or later I will have to face reality again. I often end up feeling even worse when I escape my problems through entertainment, because once I must face reality again I haven’t gained any wisdom. It’s hard to turn to God when I’m angry, sad or disappointed but every time I choose Him over entertainment I end up being grateful that I did. There have been multiple times when I’ve argued with my husband that I’ve gotten exactly the wisdom I needed when I’ve chosen to turn to prayer instead of TV.  

The biggest reason I want to choose TV over prayer when I’ having a bad day is because TV offers amusement but God offers truth. Sometimes I come to God in prayer saying something like this: “God I’m having a bad day, I need your help. Did you see the way my husband was talking to me when we argued? He’s being an idiot!” God’s answer often sounds something like this: “Are you being respectful, kind and loving in your actions right now? No. I’m going to need you to be the first one to say sorry. Don’t worry about your husband. You need to focus on your part in this argument.” Do you see why I’d rather choose to binge-watch TV? The truth stings sometimes. When I choose to escape reality through entertainment I can continue to be stubborn and full of pride. When I seek God’s counsel through prayer it’s impossible to not be humbled.

I'm on a Diet

It’s the week after Thanksgiving and I’m currently on a diet. I took some time to reflect last week and concluded that I need to go on a diet, a social media- and Netflix-diet. Social media and Netflix bring joy to my life but I need to control the number of hours I spend staring at a screen. When I was 12-years old it was easy to avoid watching too much TV or spending a lot of time online. The internet used to cost a lot of money per hour back then and my favorite TV shows only came on once a week. I had to wait a whole week before I could watch another episode of my favorite shows. Today we have constant access to a never-ending stream of entertainment, which makes it easy to spend too much time looking at a screen.

I have counted how many hours I spend online per week and have decided that I need to cut that number in half. I don’t spend that much time on one form of social media, but when you add up the time I spend on all different types of social media it becomes a lot of hours per week. I write a blog, read other people’s blogs, watch Netflix, follow people on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc.

Life is short. I want to make sure that I spend enough time in my life on loving God and loving people, not on staying updated on what everyone is doing on social media. Real love still happens in real life. I will continue to enjoy the benefits of Netflix and social media, but hopefully I will be able to spend less hours on these things from now on. Cutting my social media and Netflix intake in half will be a challenge for me, but I’m looking forward to having more time leftover for face to face conversations with friends and family. Jennie Allen’s words from her book “Proven” inspired my social media- and Netflix-diet:

“Friends, what if abundant joy, bliss, wonder and pleasure were ours, but we just kept missing those things because we’re either trying to work our way to God or numbing ourselves with fleeting entertainment?
I am learning to pick up books that show me more of Jesus, instead of turning on Netflix. I am learning to call friends over for chili instead of surfing Facebook. I am learning to look my kids in the eyes instead of stare at my phone. Our family is choosing to eat outside and laugh and have game nights and I am learning that the rhythms of gracious living are sacred and pleasing to Jesus. I want to enjoy God’s gifts but never give them too much power in my life. I want to see that Jesus is better, better than any cheap substitute I may crave.”

Jennie Allen, in her book Proven

What you won't see on Instagram

In a world full of perfect pictures from our perfect lives on social media it hit me that there are a lot of pictures you will never see from people's real lives. The pictures you take when life did not go according to plan.

The pictures from your Renewal of Vows that turned out less beautiful than others.

The messy counters in your home. It takes a lot of food (and chips) to feed a whole family.

The "Today's outfit" picture from Love Week at Elevation Church. Hairnets might just be the least flattering piece of clothing in the whole world.

The picture you took when you realized that the location where you had planned to take your beautiful Renewal of Vows pictures is covered with bird poop. My brother has some good advice for when life doesn't turn out the way you planned: "Just embrace the poop!"

It's not what it looks like

A picture says more than a thousands words. Yes, but it's not always what it looks like. A few examples from my own life:

Picture Nr.1

Los Angeles, a few years ago. What a lovely day at the beach right? Not exactly. My husband and I were in the middle of an argument when we took this picture. We realized that we weren't going to solve the argument as quickly as we wanted so we said: "Let's just take some pictures of the beach first and then we can go somewhere and talk." Oh the joy of those first couple of years as newlyweds when you have many arguments that happen at the most inconvenient times because you don't know each other's weaknesses or sensitive spots yet so you keep stepping on each others' toes.

Picture Nr.2

Here we had made up and decided to go for a hike in Los Angeles. This was a nice moment but based on what you see in the picture you can't tell the huge difference between this picture and the first picture. Pictures tell you far from everything.

Picture Nr.3

I took this picture during a bike ride this spring. It looks like a wonderful day to take a bike ride but in reality it wasn't a fun day at all! The wind was ice cold and I was biking as fast as I could to get back home again as soon as possible.

Picture Nr.4

This was a very nice day during the spring. The weather was warm and I could bike in my t-shirt and I loved the feeling of being able to enjoy riding my bike again after the long break during winter. I never posted the picture of this nice moment on my blog because it doesn't look very enjoyable or pretty.

Picture Nr.5

Then there are those pictures of your home that will never make it onto a social media account. My husband kicked me out of our Master bedroom bathroom a year ago with these words: "You take up way too much of the counter space." I have no idea what he is talking about. Nowadays I treat our guest bathroom as my own bathroom where I can spread out my stuff as much as I want!

Picture Nr.6

As I was looking at the picture of this room I realized that it's about as "cozy" as a prison cell at the moment. I never intended for this room to have such an extreme minimalist decor but let's just say it's still "in process" of getting decorated. One of these days I will take the time to hang up the curtains that I bought months ago. The blinds work fine for now. The shelf that is on the bed also needs to be attached to the wall at some point. The thing is, July is a warm and sunny month and the last thing I want to do right now is spend time indoors. Home decorating will have to wait until a rainy and cold day in September.

These pictures are just a few examples of how different reality looks from our perfectly edited lives online. We have all followed people online who seem to have a perfect, beautiful and loving family until one day the parents tell the world that they are getting a divorce. The shiny pictures that the world got to see was far from reality. We also follow people online who seem to be skilled at finding something negative to complain about in each and every situation. No matter what they are faced with you can be sure that they will find a way to whine about it on their social media accounts. We look at these people's lives online and feel sorry for them since their lives seem to be so difficult and heavy all the time. When in reality the lives of these people might actually be pretty happy and awesome, they just won't tell you about those parts. They use their social media accounts as a place to spew out their negativity.

No matter if your Facebook friends' pages are full of perfect pictures or full of negativity you can be sure that reality is neither. Reality is that life is full of everyday struggles and difficult stuff but at the same time our lives are also full of blessings and beautiful things that we will notice if we look for them. Our world is both broken and beautiful. 

Why are we so quick to judge?

When you spend time on social media it quickly becomes apparent that women love to judge each other. You will often hear people complain about and judge another woman because she is different than them. We easily get uncomfortable, judgmental and sometimes even jealous when we see a woman who is different from us.

The truth is that I'm not even a bit better than the woman who has completely different gifts, interests and priorities in her life than I do, God has made us different from each other for a reason. The world needs women who are gifted in different areas of life. Who am I to think that my type of personality or gifting is better than anyone else's? We are all gifted in completely different areas of life and instead of becoming judgmental or jealous of each other we can choose to rejoice in each other's gifts and encourage each other.

A Social Media Break

I'm so excited, tomorrow one of my friends from Finland is coming to visit me in Toronto and on Saturday my Mom and Dad will be arriving in Toronto. I want to make the most out of this time with friends and family so I will take a social media break for the rest of the week. I know updating your social media accounts often is considered important in today's culture, but if you ask me I say: "Life's too short to update your social media every single day of your life, especially when the people you love are coming to visit!" :) Have a good week everyone!

Four women I follow on Instagram

Who we follow on social media will influence us in one way or another. I like to follow some celebrities on social media because it's fun to see what they are doing, but my favorite group of people to follow are people who can inspire hope, perseverance, faith and compassion in me. Julia Veach, Christine Caine, Sarah Jakes Roberts and Jennie Lusko are four women whose instagram accounts always leave me feeling inspired and hopeful about life after each visit.


Julia Veach (@juliaveach)

Julia Veach lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband Chad Veach and their three children, together they run Zoe Church in LA. Julia has a daughter who has a rare medical condition.


Christine Caine (@christinecaine)

Christine Caine is married to Nick Caine and they have two daughters. Christine and Nick are the founders of The A21 Campaign that fight human trafficking and works to free women from sex slavery in many different countries around the world.


Sarah Jakes Robets (@sarahjakesroberts)

Sarah Jakes Roberts is married to Toure and has three children, two girls and one boy. Sarah is a pastor and an author. I love the wisdom Sarah shares on her instagram page, here's one quote: "Closure is not a moment between two people. It's demanding yourself to stop reliving your history & let go of the "what ifs."


Jennie Lusko (@jennielusko)

Jennie Lusko is married to Levi Lusko and they have four daughters, Alivia, Daisy, Clover and Lenya, who is in heaven. Jennie and Levi run Fresh Life Curch in Montana. Jennie also writes a blog at: mrslusko.com

#bodygoals

Stephanie Zerwas gives an interesting TED talk about how social media affects how we view our bodies. Stephanie is a clinical psychologist and an expert on the genetics of eating disorders and body image in the age of social media.

We find ourselves in the middle of a big "social experiment" called social media at the moment, but it's easy to forget to question this new lifestyle. Every now and then I try to ask myself questions like: "What parts of my life has gotten better and what parts has gotten worse after I started using social media?", "Do I need to establish some new personal boundaries on social media to feel better about my life and the world around me?" 

We need something to base our decisions on so I find it helpful that more and more researchers are choosing to look into how social media affects our view of ourselves and others. Stephanie Zerwas shares some of the findings from her own research in this video.

"You look disgusting"

Social media has given us many great benefits to enjoy and has enriched our lives in many ways. One of the more sad results of social media is that it seems like the way we treat each other has gotten more vicious than ever. On second thought, maybe we aren't meaner today than before, maybe it's just that our true selves are more on display today than ever before since we can hide behind a fake name online?

Every now and then you read in the news about teens who have committed suicide after being bullied online for a long time. I hope that we can create programs in schools in the future where kids and teens will learn about the real life impacts of their behavior online and get to hear stories told by people who have been victims of online bullying. I think especially kids and young teens can sometimes have a hard time understanding how much power their words can have on a persons life.

When we say a mean thing to a person in real life we feel bad, but as we write mean words on a screen the person can easily become objectified in our minds, we "forget" that it's a real human being we are writing to and it becomes harder to feel empathy. Videos like the one by "My Pale Skin" are good reminders of how much impact our words can have on a person. We have the power to either lift someone up or pull someone down, with as little as a single sentence.

The Media Fast

 

I’m reading a new book where one of the challenges the author gives you is to have a 48 hour media fast. The media fast includes taking a 48 hour break from all these things: the internet, TV, magazines, newspapers, radio stations, video games, iPods, mp3 players and stereos. I thought to myself: “This should be quite easy, it’s only for 48 hours.” It turns out it was NOT easy! I tried to take a media break on Friday and Saturday last week and let’s just say I made many “exceptions”.

The number one thing I learned from my failed attempt at a media fast was that I might have a little bit of a problem with “media addiction”. It probably could do me some good to spend a little less time on the internet, watching TV and reading magazines. I sometimes feel like I don’t have enough time for all the things I want to fit into my daily life. Now I have found one of the things that steal a lot of my time.

I love social media, being able to shop online, having Netflix with tons of different TV shows to watch etc. The only problem is there is still only 24 hours in a day. When I spend more time on the internet than I really need, or watch more TV episodes in a row than I need to become relaxed, I end up having less time for other things. It’s unbelievable to me how addictive many forms of media are. Two years ago I decided to try taking a break from alcohol for one full year, I had no problems doing this so apparently alcohol consumption is not a problem of mine. Last Friday I tried taking a 48 hour break from media and I couldn’t even do it for one full day.

My little issue with spending time doing something else than being in front of a screen made me decide to do more work in this area of my life. I decided I would cut down the time I spend on media by 30%. The big question is: “How will I entertain myself if I can’t spend my free time on media? What will I do instead?” Luckily the book I’m reading has a few suggestions: play a board game, take a walk, go for coffee with friends, work out, read a book.

 

 

The point with this media fast is that it will make room in our lives for other influences than what the media pushes on us every day. If we spend all our free time on media we will become formed by it. As we take a break from media our minds will start to change and we will start to let go of false ideals. We stop letting media define how we should view ourselves and define what is important in life. This is an opportunity to free our minds and make space to renew our thoughts about ourselves and the world we live in.

 

I have now started reading books in the evenings instead of relaxing with TV shows or on social media, which is so easy to get stuck on for hours. Yesterday I spent my evening at a coffee shop, reading a new book and enjoying a piece of cheesecake for a couple of hours, and I left my phone at home. My husband and I decided to lit candles at dinnertime a few nights a week so that we can enjoy long conversations after we are done eating instead of watching TV. It has also become very obvious to me that if I spend less time on media I suddenly have no problems at all fitting in work outs. Small changes can go a long way!