An Alternative Option

Last fall my family and I went on a backpacking trip in the Bighorn mountains of Wyoming. Our plan was to head off trail for a few days to find some lakes that we had seen farther off on our map. We never use our phones while we are in the mountains, just the contour lines of our waterproof map and our sense of direction. After a day of bushwhacking where we ended up losing our map, my journal entry read as follows: “The map fell out of Papa’s pocket at some point while we were bushwhacking up here. It feels so big and unsure when you can’t point to your place and say ‘this is where we are, that creek leads to that lake and we are about two miles aways from that mountain.’ You know where you are, and you know how to get back, but you question yourself. You have to rely on your own memory and knowledge–with nothing to assure you that you are right. I wonder if things like that feed the growing self doubt of my generation. You can always reach in your pocket to confirm. You never have to be confident in your thoughts, decisions, or independence.” 

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Middle school is tough. For the first time, kids are introduced to a more rigorous academic schedule, sports, and other extracurriculars begin in earnest. Less time is spent at home and more with friends, and above all, new social structures are built as these young people begin to discover who they are.

There are many things that families have to navigate as these years begin, but I think that one of the biggest questions that is asked (especially among Christians) is whether or not to join the social group created by the smartphone. Each family finds their own way to weather this storm; many of them eventually succumbing to the masses and sending their child into life with the whole world in their back pocket. 

I am seventeen, about to graduate from high school and move away to college, and I wanted to share my experience with you. I hope only to give encouragement, to show what I have seen and learned and to explain that it is possible to survive high school without social media or a smartphone.

Seven texting a friend on her light phone.

I got my phone in 9th grade. It is a light phone, a small device with which I can text and call, listen to podcasts and music, and find directions. I go without apps, wifi, and all forms of social media. Their website thelightphone explains that “The value of the Light Phone is not necessarily in any specific feature, but rather the experience we call going light. In our hyper-connected lives, going light is a profound shift.” I am a very big advocate for the light phone! In one of their recent blogs they explain that their goal “remains the same: to help people make the most out of their lives instead of wasting their precious time scrolling away through platforms that leave them feeling anxious, jealous and depleted; to give them the agency to choose how and when they want to use the internet in their day to day lives, and to create tools for a better life.”

“Light” admits what we all know deep down: having a smart phone takes so much of our time and actually influences who we are as a person. The internet is a constant input of information, what your friends are doing, what’s going on in other countries, what your sister wore yesterday when she went to dinner with her boyfriend… you can find it all. I am not arguing against knowledge, of course, only questioning whether the answers to all our questions should always be available to us. 

I firmly believe that sitting and being silent with only one's thoughts for company is not always a bad thing. My deepest moments of my relationship with Jesus, the greatest epiphanies of my short, young life have come to me when I am alone and quiet. Sometimes these moments have come while sitting on a mountain side in the Rockies watching the small wildflower dance against boulders and glaciers; sometimes sitting in the backseat of a car, staring at the clouds. The place has differed; the scenario hasn’t. Always I have been quiet, with nothing to read, or look at, or do. 

A quiet evening in the mountains

Jesus can’t talk to you if you are never listening. In the Bible, whenever God spoke to his people, he always commanded their full attention. Whether he needed to strike them down blind, or cause a bush to start burning, he always attained their focus before giving them his message. 

Something I have noticed about my friends with social media who aren’t christians is that they don’t spend much time wondering or pondering about their life. If they are bored, they scroll on instagram, or text with friends on snap to keep themselves occupied. They haven’t thought about dying or a God (or lack thereof) or what the meaning of their life is. They just live, trying to distract themselves from the fact that deep down (as some of my closest friends have confessed to me) it feels like there is some purpose that they wish they had, that they can’t find.

So now, today, I am sitting here writing this to you at the other end of 12th grade. I want to tell you what it has meant to me to be undistracted and how I have handled the social pressure of being different from literally (and that word is used in the literal sense not the usual teenage girl sense) every other high schooler I know.

I will be completely honest with you and say that I have never been at the top of the social structure. If that is your goal, then you should disregard the rest of this blog, because I don’t know how to get you there. I will also tell you that I have been so very happy. I can honestly say that I don’t think I have experienced any depression through my entire high school career. There have been moments of pain and loneliness of course, but in these moments I saw the value of the friends who have been true to me through everything, and of my greatest friend in heaven who would always love me no matter what.

There have been times where I wished that I could be like the “cool kids” (it would be so easy!), but there have also been times (that have come, again, in moments of silence) where I have realized that I have been so freed by not having social media. Free from judgement of the socially elite and free from judging others. Free from the “friends” that didn’t care about who I am as a person—who God has made me to be. Above all, I have become confident. Confident that the most important thing in the world is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” When I think about that, and think about how beautiful, and short, and full of meaning this life is, I realize that NONE OF THE COOLNESS STUFF MATTERS. 

Having friends is important, but not the end goal of life. We shouldn’t live for that. Same with sports, work, or anything besides loving God. We aren’t here to be popular, we aren’t here to fit in, we aren’t here to simply have a good time. This life really isn’t about us at all (this is so hard to remember because it is the opposite of what everyone else tells us!).  We are here to serve and love and worship God with our lives. If we can ever live for that reason alone, we will finally know what it means to feel fulfilled and happy.

I want you to know that I would be a very different person today if I had social media, and I don’t think I would be happier or closer to God. I have had to face my emotions, ask my questions, wrestle with my thoughts. I am different from most people my age, but it is good. For those who are curious if there is a different way I'm here to tell you there is!  

(And yes we made it out of the mountains without the map…. And just as we were almost back to the trail, we actually found it lying on the ground at the base of an old spruce tree!)