{"id":2370,"date":"2023-02-14T07:22:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T12:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2370"},"modified":"2023-02-14T07:25:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T12:25:36","slug":"a-love-like-no-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/14\/a-love-like-no-other\/","title":{"rendered":"A Love Like No Other"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.

Every year on Valentine\u2019s Day, the age-old question seems to feel a bit more urgent:  Does anybody out there really love me?

According to Nancy Jo Sales\u2019 harrowing book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers<\/em>, an overwhelming majority of young females in our country are looking to their flat screens in search of answers.

Sales spent two years talking at length to more than 200 girls, ages 13-19, in ten different states.  With their permission, she followed what they posted on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine.

What she discovered is no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the youth scene over the past 15 years:  Social media has become a dominant force in how girls make up their minds about their bodies, their relationships, and their very identity.

\u201cWe\u2019re on it 24\/7,\u201d said one 13-year-old.  \u201cIt\u2019s all we do.\u201d  That may not be literally true.  But digital culture is where all too many girls (as the apostle Paul once said about relating to God) \u201clive, move, and have our being.\u201d

\u201cIt\u2019s like someone constantly tapping you on the shoulder, and you have to look,\u201d said another teen.  My phone just dinged.  Who texted me?  Who likes and who hates the picture I posted 20 minutes ago?  Where are my friends right now, and what are they doing?  Who\u2019s having fun without me?  Do the guys at my school think I\u2019m Hot or Not?<\/em>

\u201cIt\u2019s an extraordinary new reality, and it\u2019s happened so fast,\u201d writes Sales.  \u201cFor the first time [almost all] American girls are engaged in the same sort of activity most of the time.\u201d 

Girls may exchange more than 300 texts a day.  Sociologists hesitate to use the word addictive <\/em>when it comes to technology, but numerous smart phone users cannot imagine life without their devices.

The most poignant aspect of social media is the way it has become the primary means of shaping one\u2019s identity \u2013 essentially, inventing and sustaining a personal brand.

There\u2019s a lot at stake.

Have you gotten a few hundred likes today for your most recent selfie?  \u201cYou\u2019re gorgeous!\u201d \u201cWhat a fox!\u201d  Or have you been thrown into the cyber purgatory of being rejected, ridiculed, or bullied?  \u201cYou\u2019re a pretender.\u201d  \u201cWhy don\u2019t you just drink bleach and die?\u201d All too many kids hear such messages from other kids in the unfiltered, uncensored, unimaginably painful world of social media \u201cconversation.\u201d

Self-esteem skyrockets or crashes based on a few numbers:  Do my social media accounts and postings have as many followers and likes as everyone else I know?

Sales points out that most girls are conscious of the sheer phoniness of this system of ranking and rating.  After all, everyone knows that everyone else is posting primarily the highlight reel of their lives.   \u201cIt\u2019s funny it\u2019s called a selfie,\u201d said a girl named Riley, \u201cbecause half the time it doesn\u2019t even look like you.\u201d  Girls can purchase apps that allow them to change their physical features (often to hypersexualize them) before they hit Send.  \u201cYou want people to like this picture of you that isn\u2019t even real.\u201d 

And if you don\u2019t get as many likes as you like, you can always buy them.  Anxious moms, in particular, might go online and anonymously purchase hundreds of fabricated likes to help their daughters have a better day.  Social media, for many, thus becomes a never-ending exercise in impression management. 

Psychologists have long spoken of the phenomenon of the Looking-Glass Self.  It goes like this: We tend to think of ourselves according to the way we think the most important person in our lives thinks of us<\/em>. 

If you yearn more than anything else in the world to be loved or respected by a parent, a teacher, a friend, or a lover, you are giving that person incredible power over your sense of well-being.  If that person turns on you or betrays you \u2013 or perhaps worst of all, acts as if your existence doesn\u2019t even matter \u2013 you will be crushed.  If a teenage girl longs for the attention of her peer group or a special boy, but receives only rejection, she may begin to see herself as a Non-Entity.  As a Person of No Value.  As Irreparably Damaged. 

But there\u2019s another way to go.

If the Looking-Glass Self tells us that our identity is linked to how we perceive the thoughts and feelings of the person we most admire, then our self-image can be healed as we begin to shape our lives around the reality of Jesus\u2019 love.  He will never betray or reject us.  He will never dismiss us with Dislikes or Unfriends.  It\u2019s impossible to overstate the power of Romans 8:38-39:  \u201cI am convinced that nothing \u2013 not death nor life nor angels nor demons nor the present nor the future nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation \u2013 absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d That is a love that never fails. 

Finally, there\u2019s a sense in which the obsession of keeping up with every new flat screen communication is deeply ironic.  It\u2019s often driven by FOMO \u2013 the Fear of Missing Out. 

The irony is that social media fixation really can cause us to miss out: 

We miss out on taking walks. 
And reading books.
And learning how to read body language. 
And developing a rich interior life.
And being fully present, right here and right now. 
And being still and knowing that God is God.

Mostly we miss out on waking up every morning with the deep assurance that even if no one says they liked our most recent post, we are loved and treasured beyond all reason by the God who created us and sustains us.

Which turns out to be a Valentine like no other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Every year on Valentine\u2019s Day, the age-old question seems to feel a bit more urgent:  Does anybody out there really love me? According to Nancy Jo Sales\u2019 harrowing book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, an overwhelming majority of young females in our country are looking to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-2370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2370"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions\/2373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}