Table of Contents
Preface:
Introduction: Getting to the Heart of Our Problems
Part 1: Social Media and Our Searches
Chapter 1: Your heart’s search for approval
We all have a deep need to feel approved, but without God’s approval we’re forced to use social media like a talent show. We perform for others in hopes that we can get enough attention and applause to make ourselves feel valuable.
Chapter 2: Your heart’s search for identity
We're all looking for an identity in life, for a way to define ourselves. So we share on social media to create an identity and try to get other people’s validation. This identity becomes a mask, though, and makes it so we can never be truly known or loved.
Chapter 3: Your heart’s search for meaning
We need to know that our lives have meaning, that our day-to-day events are connected to something of significance. Without a connection to God’s transcendent story, we try to find meaning by telling our personal story on social media.
Chapter 4: Your heart’s search for purpose
Because we’re stuck in a universe without any ultimate purpose, we look to social media to provide a life purpose that’ll keep us going. And so our purpose in life is to use social media to cultivate our personal aesthetic and turn our lives into a work of art.
Chapter 5: Your heart’s search for celebrity
We all want to feel significant, so we spend our lives trying to become a social media celebrity. We use social media to turn our lives into entertainment for other people to consume, hoping it’ll give us the recognition we need to increase our self-worth.
Part 2: The Ways These Searches Play Out
Chapter 6: Your heart’s pursuit of being cool
We use social media to broadcast our personal rebellions against our culture to try to become cool. We hope that by gaining social media status with our peers we’ll secure a spot as an insider.
Chapter 7: Your heart’s pursuit of beauty
We use social media to show how we conform to the beauty standards of our culture, with the hope that we can use our looks to get the attention we need to rise to the top of social media.
Part 3: The Problems That This Creates
Chapter 8: Your heart’s problem with perfectionism
When we look to social media for validation, we feel pressure to share a perfect image that meets our culture’s expectations. This, however, will always become an unmanageable burden.
Chapter 9: Your heart's problem with pride
Social media reinforces our belief that we’re the most important person in the universe, and so we go through life using it to show that everything should revolve around us.
Chapter 10: Your heart’s problem with comparison
As we use social media to outdo our peers and show that we’re winning at life, we compare ourselves against other people and use them as measuring sticks to establish our self-worth.
Chapter 11: Your heart’s problem with envy
When we look at other people on social media and feel like we’re losing the comparison game, we envy them and try to tear them down to make ourselves feel better about our lives.
Conclusion: Don’t waste your life on social media
When we saturate our lives with social media, we run the risk of wasting our lives. While we can enjoy social media, God wants us to use our lives to bear eternal fruit for His kingdom.