Facebook has much to offer us. I love that I can reconnect with family and friends who live far away from me and my family. I love sharing pictures of our kids so that their grandparents and aunts and uncles can see. And it is fun reestablishing a friendship online with people you haven’t seen or heard from in years. Occasionally you read an article (or book) about how social media is addling our brains or turning us into socially obtuse narcissists, but can this really be true?
Author and church planter, Tim Chester, has written a short booklet (48 pages) which can be read in less time than many of us spend online per day. Chester is not a Luddite. He acknowledges the benefits of Facebook and other social media sites; however, there are problems and dangers in its excessive use. Many use Facebook to recreate their world, controlling how people perceive them. Others use Facebook to escape their limitations (using Facebook to replace real-world relationships rather than enhance them). Chester explores these dangers, but also relates them to the gospel. While the promise of social media is relationship on our terms, in the gospel God has opened up away to relate to Him and one another on His terms. While we try to ‘recreate ourselves’ on social media sites, God in Christ is recreating us in his image. He relates to us in truth while many of our online worlds are built on self-constructed images and pretense.
Chester closes with some guidelines for social networking which enable us to use them beneficially, while avoiding some of the inherent dangers. I like Facebook as much as the next person, but technology is not neutral and carries its own telos. If we use social media in a non-examined way, we likely will end up somewhere we never intended to be, in terms of how we see ourselves and our relationships. Chester offers some great advice on how to be mindful in the online world. This book will be helpful for anyone seeking to get a handle on their online world and wanting to bring greater integrity to their social media presence.
Thank you to 10Publishing and Cross Focused Reviews for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this review
Question: How much time do you spend on social media? What impact (if any) does it have on your real-time-relationships and embodied life?
thoughts, prayers & songs: 
James,
Thanks for being part of the blog tour. I always look forward to your reviews.
Shaun Tabatt
Cross Focused Reviews
Hi James! This looks like a great resource. I recently felt I had to leave Facebook because I wasn’t using it in a healthy way. It’s so easy to slip into bad habits with it. This sounds like a great resource to have on hand for anyone in pastoral ministry!