Now, we seem to hear new terms in this world every day. Recently, I just read a news report about young people developing a symptoms call “social phobia”. In China, they call it  “社恐”. Now, I supposed we hear about social anxieties where people feel awkward in social settings, but social phobia is a more intensive kind of awkwardness where it has developed into fear or extreme uneasiness in coming face to face interacting with people. And what is the cause of that? It is said to be Social Media. And why is social media becoming such a powerful tool that even psychologists are saying that it changes the brain of young people, whose brain only fully developed by the age of late twenties.

Recently, there was a report on a medical research, where it was found out about 80 per cent of Chinese university students believe they have mild symptoms of social phobia, or social anxiety disorder. Young people are extremely shy to respond when they are talking face to face with people, but they can be very talkative and responsive when online. It is an increasingly phenomenon now. And the report went on to suggest that the rates of social anxiety symptoms among young people in seven countries, including China, are increasing. It is in fact quite common among adolescents today, who, supposedly at an age of curiosity and exploration, often refuse to go out of their homes or meet anyone.

Now, why is this tendency developing in young people, and in my opinion not only young people, but middle age people like me too. Why the fear to express ourselves freely with our natural and passionate countenance, which portrays the image of God?

Now of course the 2-3 pandemic years of mask wearing has shaped our tendency to hide ourselves behind a mask. We slowly become social beings who doesn’t like to show too much of ourselves. But what could be the greatest cause of social phobia is the prevalence of social media. It has reduced our natural reliance to express ourselves freely or to even come into physical contact with people naturally.  

Now I don’t know about you. But I grew up without social media. We have introverts and extroverts also. We have people who are socially awkward, but we haven’t heard the term “social phobia”, which apparently is a unique problem of this generation. But why could social media shaped us to such an extent, which it could even take away a very essential part of our human tendency? Is social media the very root cause after all?

Now, for every new phenomenon which arises in this world, we must know that it is not new as with the revelation of God is concerned. Remember when our ancestor first sinned, the very first thing they did is to cover their nakedness. And what prompts them to do that is none other than the shame they felt, and the distrust they had for the other person. Indeed, sin makes us shameful about ourselves so that we cannot fully bare ourselves to the other person. It’s our self-image that is shattered deep in our soul. Yet, sin makes us lose our trust for others. It is unnatural for us to trust anyone fully that they will accept us for who we are. So we’ve become too self-conscious that we’ll be judged for who we are. We are afraid that we’ll be judged because of the way we talk, the way we look, or the way we express ourselves. We are afraid to be judged when we don’t measure up to the expectations or fit the social norms. Sin has inherently caused such an insecure tendency in us, whether we are an introvert or extrovert.

But with the coming of social media, this has been made much worse.

Why?

Because we are now given the instrument, the convenience to hide our insecurity behind a screen. We can beautify our words, we could create a façade about ourselves, we can be a keyboard warrior without having to face the immediate disapproval of another person’s negative expression. Our timidity and inadequacy can all be concealed behind a screen.

But why has it caused social phobia? Because we’ve trusted so much in this convenient tool. We’ve trusted in it to feel secure, to find solace, to get entertainment, or to stay in our self-confined world without fearing to be judged. But when we’re trusting in anything in this world other than God to deal with our fear and insecurities, it ultimately takes over us. It skews our beautiful nature that God has created.

Now, let me offer this biblical view. Strictly speaking, it’s not that social media has changed our mind, but because we’ve given ourselves over to it, we’ve trusted in it, that is why it begin to shape us. When we seek pleasures in social media instead of communicating with our loved ones around us, we lose the tendency to express ourselves naturally and forthcomingly. When we trust in social media to satisfy us, our needs and sensitivity mechanism goes haywire. We become oblivious to happenings around us. We become unfamiliar with the sense of touch. Sometimes, I hear parents telling me that when their children are pre-occupied with their handphone, they don’t want to be talked to, they don’t want to be touched even. And if their parents touch them, they’ll say, “Don’t touch me!” They just want others out of their self-defined space. And these people, when they’re with outsiders, felt even more insecure. Why? Because they’ve let the virtual world shaped their mind. But being sociable is what everyone needs, be it an introvert or extrovert. To mingle, to know a person deeply, to see one’s expression and reaction is what we really need.

Now my brethren, never let social phobia take over you. The Bible says, “there is no fear in love”. God has not saved us in Christ to let us remain in any sort of fear, whether it is the fear of danger, fear of failure, or fear of social life. And to resolve the problem of social phobia, one must not fall back on personality reasoning, thinking that it is due to our introvert nature. Neither should one rationalize it, thinking that it is not a problem. Any form of fear is not from God, and we must pray against it.

Next, we must deliberately deal with the fear by walking out of our social media to meet our friends, or to even attend physical worship if you haven’t done so.

Now, I lead a church which didn’t close its doors to worshippers for these 2 years of pandemic. Except for the circuit breaker period, we have never stopped physical worship. Why? Because I recognize that the fear of meeting people is more detrimental to the fear of being infected in the long run. And I’ve seen with my own eyes, people who came for physical worship faithfully for these two years do not fear being infected. The physical gathering with people actually strengthens us against all sorts of other fears.

Now, if you let yourself continue to stay on screen, and find your life around social media, you will slowly develop a weak and timid nature, where you’ll become extremely awkward among people, and eventually start fearing everything else. And trust me, no evangelist can impact the world when he merely stays on screen. He has to be with the people. People has to see him live. Now, I am not saying we should close all our social media channel, but just as you find information and entertainment on social media, you must deliberately be at social functions. You must deliberately put away your handphones when you are dining or mingling with people at social settings. You must leverage on the physical dynamics of social settings to train your social sensitivity.

Lastly, with the whole world revolving around social media, we need to have personal time with God without our social media. For me, my time of prayer is also the time I go for my exercise. I deliberately put my handphone at home during those time, because I realized any temptation to check my handphone take away my focus to have deep and meaningful conversation with God. The time alone with the God who creates my soul just somehow restore my nature of being a normal social being after a whole day working on screen.

So my brethren, I’m not telling you to put away your social media, just don’t find your world in them. Your world is with the physical world. The world that God created for every one of us is not virtual, but it is live and real. No one can live in a virtual world and find true happiness. May God removed all kinds of phobia that is uncalled for in our lives.