- The Reformation Brief -
- Al Scott -
A recent Google poll showed more than 40% of young adults (ages 18-24) said they use TikTok to learn and discover information. According to the Pew Research Center, just under 30% said they use the app to find news.
Let's be honest, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years, these numbers are not at all surprising. Social media usage among the general population--but specifically among young people--is at an all-time high.
We live in such an age that when we want to be entertained, we go to social media. When we want to find approval, we go to social media. When we want a friend, we go to social media. When we want to read the news, we go to social media. And according to Google's most recent survey of social media users in the U.S., when we want to learn, we go on TikTok.
With Americans spending more and more time on their phones and less and less time in the real world, it will be a wonder if there is any normalcy left by the time of the iPhone 20. And if only it actually produced the intended result! But the sad truth is that social media will never truly fill the gap left by printed information and normal, human, social interaction.
Don't be mistaken, TikTok news will push print news out just as Snapchat might very well eliminate in-person dating, but what social media will not do is successfully fill the needs that were met by the real thing--those things created in us and for us by our creator.
We were made social creatures.
We were made to see people face to face, not mask to mask, and certainly not bitmoji to bitmoji.
We were made readers, not consumers of Instagram reels.
The world functioned off of print for the first 2000 years it was in existence. The Bible - God's inspired word - was given in print, not in 30-second TikToks.
We were made to think.
And thinking, in case it is not already clear, comes from actually learning. No, not sitting down and filling your brain with entertaining shorts, but real, long, hard, thoughtful, intelligent learning. Not from Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, or even Twitter, but by the same means by which Isaac Newton, Alexander the Great, Albert Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Charles Spurgeon, Charles Wesley, and George Washinton got their information: through words: printed and spoken.
Al K. Scott, Editor in Chief
The Reformation Times (reformationtimes.com)
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