For someone as committed to social media as I am, I sure do share a lot of negative thoughts about those media. Most of the posts with the tag “Social Media” on this blog are either negative or cautionary tales about the world of Twitter, Facebook and texting.
It’s true that social media have a tremendous amount of negative potential but that’s only because they also have a tremendous amount of positive potential. We need to celebrate the positive influence social media have and then continue to cultivate similar experiences.
Just yesterday most of the students in our high school ministry started back to school. Over the summer we talked a lot about their ability to shine God’s kingdom in their schools. I wanted to remind the students of that so, yesterday morning, I sent out a mass text which read:
If you’re back at school today, have a great day!!! God has blessed you to be a blessing to others.
It was a short message that a lot of the students appreciated and it was made possible because of social media. Granted one student said the text got her in trouble but that’s not the fault of social media.
Also, through Facebook, Alycia and I were able to have dinner with one of her family members who was visiting the area. We didn’t know that she was coming down but, because I saw something on Facebook, we were able to connect and enjoy a great dinner together. Again, mostly due to the positive effect of social media.
Obviously there are a lot of dangers inherent in social media: disconnection, over-sharing and narcissism, just to name a few. But we shouldn’t let those potential dangers keep us from seeing the inherent good in the social network.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go post some panda videos to Facebook.
What potential for good have you seen through social media?
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