Suicide is second only to accidents as the leading cause of death among adolescents.
This according to the journal Pediatrics, and Internet use exceeding five hours a day has been linked to suicide and depressive thoughts.
The pervasive social media rant impacts all ages and influences the church too. Today America lives in a world where at a click of a button we can send an email to thousands. We can post on social media a comment that will be re-sent and re-tweeted, liked and shared, ad infinitum. Our methods of communication are immediate. In days gone by, if someone wanted to send a fiery, nasty, complaining note to someone else they would need to take the time to find some paper and compose a letter. Having written it, they would then need to look for an envelope and a stamp – before finally posting the letter. This all took time.
Late night anger
Now it is instantaneous. Late at night, feeling angry after that meeting, you can fire off an email expressing exactly how you are feeling at that moment. You can go on Facebook and post your feelings and your thoughts. You can tweet 140 word rants about anything you feel and it can be re-tweeted endlessly. Someone’s character or reputation can be destroyed at the touch of a button.
Gossip and slander used to be so much harder. You would have to find someone (face-to-face normally) and, in the context of a private conversation, reframe the truth about someone else that put that other person in the worst possible light. The look of the person to whom you were talking, their response (even challenge, if they were godly) could modify your bile and keep your worst instincts in check.
But now it can all be done at a distance. We can post on message boards or Facebook or by other myriad ways ruin the life of someone else in an instant.
Setting off a firestorm
It is probably unpopular to say this, but it all makes me feel great sympathy for our political leaders and the ruling class in general. Fifteen years ago the ‘24-hour news cycle’ was a new phenomenon that had to be managed carefully and expertly by PR specialists and ‘spin doctors’. Now it is far worse: we do not just live in a 24-hour news cycle, we live in a place where any individual from the comfort of a bedroom can – if his or her post is sufficiently incendiary – set off a firestorm.
Brothers and sisters: it should not be so among us. Think before you click. And remember that most unpopular of virtues in our individualistic and expressive age: self-control.
