Social Media, Information, and Five Ways They are Harming Your Child

In 1985, then Senator Al Gore, coined the term Information Superhighway. This term referred to the goal of having every citizen connected with information at all times. While this seemed like a noble idea at the time, we have discovered that our minds are not designed for this never-ending flow of television programming and “binge” watching, continuous newsfeeds, social media, email, text messaging, phone calls, smart watches, video gaming, and who knows what else in the future. People seem to have an appetite for this constant flow of information that many refer to as the Infobahn, after the German super highway, the Autobahn. Whatever the term, this relentless flow of information is causing some very serious mental health problems, especially among our children and teenagers, whose brains are not ready to process so much information.

Many of us grew up watching the nightly news and reading newspapers that contained day old information, and we were completely oblivious to what people were eating for dinner the next street over because it was not posted on social media. The flow of information was much more limited and filtered. God even tells us in the Gospel of John, chapter 21, verse 25, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.”

God, Himself does not want us on the Infobahn, even when it comes to His Word. There is so much more that