Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite day…

Did anyone else sing that song as a kid? I remember back in elementary school when my uncle was my teacher for a few years. He was my most favorite teacher EVER, and I remember him singing that song. 🙂 Now I sing it to my kids, and time moves on…way too fast.

Earlier in the week I shared our decision to move off of social media. We’ve gotten a lot of different responses, which was to be expected. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with the decision, but ultimately it’s up to us to do what we feel is right for Wide Awake. I really want to thank you for trusting us in this decision. It wasn’t an easy one!

I want to make it super clear that I am 100% not saying that everyone has to agree with us. And I am 100% not saying that if you stay on social media I’m judging you and we can’t be friends. You know us! We aren’t like that. I’m okay with agreeing to disagree, and I’m okay with your perspective being different from mine. No worries, and no judgement from our end. Okay?

Many of you asked me to share resources that I have been learning from over the past year or so that helped lead us to this decision. So, here you go! I hope you find them as helpful and inspiring as I have. I’m not claiming to be any kind of expert. I have so much more to learn and think over. I’m open-minded and don’t claim to have the market on correct opinions. If you read, listen to, or watch any of these recommendations do let me know! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

For Everyone. These resources have helped me examine my own relationship with digital technology and social media. There is more to this life than the world inside our phones. Social media is one place, but it is not the only place to find information and connect with people. I highly recommend these resources if you would like to learn more.

Books

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (This is a book that I will need to read again and again. Not to be dramatic, but i kinda changed my life. Ha!) https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Right Now by Jaron Lanier (This one sounds super extreme and fanatical, but it’s actually really informative. The author is not just ranting. He presents facts about how social media works and how it is changing us and our society.) http://www.jaronlanier.com/tenarguments.html

Film

The Social Dilemma on Netflix (This is WOAH.) https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_social_dilemma

Podcasts

An interview about digital minimalism: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/122-digital-minimalism-with-cal-newport/id1054817076?i=1000429472069

An interview about the science and dangers of social media: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jaron-lanier-why-you-should-unplug-from-social-media/id1344999619?i=1000429216123

My favorite podcast on these topics: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-collin-kartchner-podcast/id1513817377

For Parents. As a mom of many, I find myself more and more concerned with the culture of screens and kids that I see around me these days. My heart breaks to see toddlers playing on iPhones and 5th graders on social media. I just can’t. I know we are all still figuring out how to parent in the smart phone world, and we have all made mistakes or done things we regret. I highly recommend these resources for parents, or anyone who someday hopes to be a parent. You can’t unlearn this information, so proceed with caution- but please do proceed! It’s never too late to make changes in your home. Our kids need us to be awake and alert when it comes to tech use. This is an area of parenting we don’t get to ignore.

Books

Last but most definitely not least…

For the heart. I can read all the books and listen to all the podcasts and watch all the documentaries, but this decision was ultimately made because of what God has been speaking our hearts. We can do this work on our own terms and work completely off of our own ideas and what makes sense to us, and I’m sure we could create something nice. We can do all the newest, greatest therapies and build our online “platform” and “audience” and take the best photos, and that would be fine. It might even be really cool. But, we can’t ignore this whisper from the Holy Spirit to do things differently. We can’t ignore this invitation from the Father to do things his way. God has promised us that if we would follow him, one YES at a time, that he would create something really special here. Maybe whatever we could create here on our own could be good, but we believe that God wants to do something better. We don’t know the concrete differences between his ways and our ways, but we aren’t willing to miss out. We don’t want to do what everyone says we “should” do. We want to say YES to God.

If you would like to learn more about our hearts behind this, I recommend the book In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2520.In_the_Name_of_Jesus

Nouwen was a very well-known author and professor when he left his career to become a priest in a community for people with disabilities. This book is his reflections on christian leadership after making the move. In it he discusses the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be popular, and the temptation to be powerful. Those three temptations are what kept us from leaving social media a year ago when we first felt we were supposed to. Yikes. It’s a short read and a wonderful treasure of a book. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

As always, if you have any questions you can contact us any time. We are excited and a little nervous about this new way to communicate. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how it all pans out! Thanks for joining us on the ride. 🙂

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