As I was praying Prime this morning and meditating on Psalm 6:3 (“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled”, Douay-Rheims) I had a very curious and random thought pop into my mind: the internet, specifically social media (especially Twitter), is like a Roman arena… and I’m guilty of being weak to its siren song. Well, the second part didn’t come until I prayed the Rosary after breakfast but it’s something that’s stuck with me. I know the psalm isn’t about this — it’s about mercy and how God loves us despite our weaknesses — but that’s what came to mind.
I thought about how people use the internet to attack others and how those with more power and influence can utterly destroy the lives of others through it. I thought about the mob mentality that gets intense on Twitter. I thought about what I personally went through on the last day of the year for simply stating that superstitious traditions associated with the New Year go against Church teachings earned me verbal attacks and criticisms. I thought about how all those gossip accounts and websites report fodder for the masses, wasting our time. And I thought about how I’ve been guilty of falling into those traps.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my love/hate relationship with social media comes from a combination of my want of privacy, my weakness when it comes to moderation, and all the bad things that happen on it. Of course I see the good: the friendships I’ve made through it, the growth I’ve made as a person, the good things I’ve learned… but the negative is what affects me the most and usually outweighs the good for me.
I thought about Bl. Carlo Acutis (thanks to that funny yet not actually real tweet about a guy supposedly talking smack to him on an online gaming forum) and how he limited his time on things like gaming to do better things for the world. Actually, I think about that a lot since I’ve been wasting a lot more time online during the holidays. I thought about how prayers have become an afterthought during this time and how hard it’s going to be to get back into my prayer groove after 9 months of a specific novena routine and another 54-days of another novena routine.
I actually cleaned up my Instagram feed quite a bit yesterday since that’s where I’m weakest. Yes, I know it’s funny that the place I’m most addicted to is a visual site while I’m visually impaired. lol. But I cleaned it up because I was spending way too much time on it and a majority of the accounts I was following were not good for me. They didn’t add anything good except some extra dopamine hits and it actually detracted from my spiritual life. Bl. Carlo’s example was like a bucket of ice water that woke me up from that (as I’m calling it) siren song.
Then, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I thought about how social media is like an arena and we’re sent out to the lions… except we do it to ourselves. Those who imprison us are both those created the sites for making (and keeping) them as addicting as they are and ourselves for willingly using them. We’re social creatures so it’s natural for us to want to connect but I think a majority of the time we put too much of an emphasis on the online connections and we neglect those offline.
I thought about how we Catholics and non-Catholic conservatives who don’t go to extremes are very likely going to become, in a way, white martyrs for professing our faith in the lion’s den that is the internet. The only thing is that I’m no Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. I may say what I say but I don’t have the courage they had to face that martyrdom. I log off. I hide. I don’t regret what I post but I also don’t stick around and that makes me feel like a coward in a way. There’s some great people who fight for and defend the Faith online and do it in a wonderful way that I could never do. That’s not my forte. I’m too sensitive for that.
All of this is going to make me think long and hard about how I’ve used the internet and social media, how I’m currently using it, and how I want to continue using it from here on out. It’s going to be something that will undoubtedly take time for me to figure out as I’m still struggling with moderation when I’m not busy.
And that concludes this year’s first blog post. lol. It’s not exactly what I had in mind but it’s something I felt like sharing.
I’m going to go ponder this a bit more and see what the Holy Spirit will help me figure out.
I hope y’all had a lovely New Year’s Day and have a wonderful year!
As a always, thanks for reading and God bless!
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