I remember when the first cell phone was introduced. Everyone knew it would be a game changer, but I don’t think anyone knew how much. When this technology first emerged, the phones got smaller and smaller. But then Steve Jobs came along with a new paradigm, a new concept, which is what we now know as the iPhone. Basically he gave us a pocket computer. It was far more than a phone. He also introduced the app.
So now we have apps, and we have social media. This is having an interesting effect on our nation, and it isn’t good. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has written a book called iGen, a term she uses to describe people born between 1995 and 2012.
She wrote that members of iGen are “at the forefront of the worst mental health crisis in decades, with rates of teen depression and suicide skyrocketing since 2011.” She attributes much of it to cell phones.
People are disconnecting from real life and living in a virtual world, in a digital world, actually thinking those people on Facebook are really their friends and those people on Twitter are really their followers. And then there is the phenomenon of being famous for just being famous. It’s an entirely new kind of celebrity that has developed.
I think it gets down to what people really want in life.
People want to be loved.
People want to be needed.
And people want to be appreciated.
They want to feel that someone values them and cares about them. Many try to do it through digital connection.
But this is where the church comes in. And more to the point, this is where evangelism and discipleship come in. Our objective is to lead others to Jesus.
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