July 9, 2025 • 46 mins
What is social media doing to us on a soul level? What's it doing to the next generation? Life coach and author Allie Marie Smith talks about hitting the reset button on social media. Her encouragement is to pause for 30 days to seek restoration in your mind, heart, body, and soul. What might be the outcome of such an exercise? Find out on Chris Fabry Live.
Resources mentioned:
Social Media Reset: A 30-Day Guided Journey to Unplug, Reconnect with God, and Reclaim Your Joy by Allie Marie Smith
July thank you gift:
Drive Through the Bible by Colin S. Smith
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:06):
Today at the radio backyard fence. Some help for anybody
who needs a social media reset. How do you know
if you need one? Let me ask you some questions.
Answer this yes or no. And if you if you don't,
I'm going to reclaim my time. Okay. Just yes or no.
Do you spend more time on social media than you
intend to? Do you often check social media first thing
(00:29):
in the morning or last thing at night? Do you
feel anxious, restless, or irritable when you can't access social media?
Do you use social media as an escape from sadness, loneliness,
or boredom? Do you feel upset if the response to
your posts don't get much response? Those are just a
(00:52):
few of the questions that our guests guest singular wants
you to think about today, because she believes the draw
of the digital world is making us more anxious, more depressed,
more distracted and making us more alone. How? In a
connected world, how do we feel alone? Her audience is
(01:14):
mainly women, young and old. I think men are dealing
with the same thing. Let's talk with Ali Marie Smith
today about a 30 day plan to unplug, reconnect with God,
and reclaim your joy. Straight ahead on Chris Fabry live
online Chris Fabry live. Org. Let me thank our team.
Ryan McConaughey doing all things technical. Tricia is our producer
in the chair today. Rihanna is going to be answering
(01:36):
your calls. Thank you for your support. We get to
have these conversations daily meetings because friends and partners join
with us and lend their support. So if today's topic
hits a nerve with you, call or click through to
support the program or thank you. This month is Pastor
Colin Smith's excellent study. He calls it Drive Through the Bible.
(01:57):
It's designed to help you see how all of Scripture
fits together in one glorious narrative of God's mercy and
grace over thousands of years. I hear this all the time. I.
I get into the Old Testament, even some sections of
the New Testament, I get lost. I don't understand it.
I can't see how this fits together. This is the
book that will help you drive through the Bible. And
(02:19):
it's our thank you. This month, give a gift of
any size 866 95 Fabbri is our number. Fabbri (866) 953-2279
or go to Chris Fabbri Livorno. Scroll down. You'll see
how you can give right there. Thank you for your
support here in the middle of the summer in July.
(02:40):
Chris Fabbri, Livorno okay, so here's my observation. Let me
get up on my, uh, on my soapbox. The other day,
I remembered an old song from the 1970s. I was
outside in the heat of summer in Tucson, Arizona. It
was like this song just popped into my head and
I could think I could. I could sing, hum along
(03:01):
the the lyrics and get the chorus of the song.
I remembered those, I couldn't remember who sang it. What
was that artist's name? I can see his face from
the 1970s. He had long blonde hair. It was one
of those one hit wonders. So I did what you do.
I grabbed my phone, and I. Or I got my
mouse and I thought, I'll just Google this. But before
(03:23):
I pressed the button, I paused and I thought this.
What's going to happen if I don't look this up immediately?
If I don't know the answer to this question, what's
going to happen inside of me? How long will it
take me to remember? And how am I ever going
to know if I will remember, if I don't look
it up? And I thought of the we played this
back and forth of Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz about
(03:46):
Israel supporting Israel, and Tucker asked Cruz, where in the
Bible does it say we ought to support the nation
of Israel? And Senator Cruz said, I can't remember right now.
You pull out your phone, you know, plug it in,
you'll find out. So my observation is we are becoming
more dependent than ever on that powerful device in our
(04:07):
pocket or the computer, which is not a new thought.
But if we become dependent on the device to give
every left turn and right turn that we need to
take to get to where we want to go pretty soon,
you're asking the device to make your life better, easier,
more comfortable. And then you rely on it to make
(04:28):
you feel the way you want to feel. So the
first thing we have to do is to see how
much this is going on every day, not in other people.
It's so much easier for me to see it in
other people's lives, but to see what it's doing in
our own life. And once you see it, then you
(04:48):
can decide what to do. That's what I think Allie
Marie Smith has done. and like many topics we present here,
is a guest who has allowed the wound in her
own life to be a place of healing, not only
for herself as but others as well. You and me.
Her name is Ali Marie Smith. She's an award winning author, speaker,
(05:09):
podcast host, life coach, founder and CEO of Wonderfully Made.
We spoke with her a couple of years ago. Her
latest is Social Media Reset, a 30 day guided journey
to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy. It
sounds good. How do we do that, though? Hey, Ali,
welcome to the program. Welcome back. How are you doing?
S2 (05:30):
Hey, Chris, it's so fun to talk to you again.
And it's an honor to be back. And I am
a big fan of yours. I don't know how you
sleep and do a radio program with with all the
books that you write, so it's great to talk to
you and your listeners.
S1 (05:46):
What I just said, am I getting close to the
bone of what you're talking about?
S2 (05:52):
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Um, as a culture, we have become
just so reliant on our devices, and we really are
living in a digital world. You know, everything from our
the news and the TV and movies and and our
phones and social media. And it really has taken over
(06:15):
our lives and really shaped our culture. It's shaping who
we are becoming. Um, especially since the onset of social
media 21 years ago. Um, you know, I always say
that our world has never been so lonely, depressed, divided, anxious,
and even suicidal. Yes.
S1 (06:37):
And isolated. And you can go on and on and
on with those things. So that thing that I just
said about you have to first. You have to see it.
When did you see yourself and what was going on
inside of you? How did you figure that out?
S2 (06:54):
Sure. Well, I got social media right when it came out.
I was in college. I had to have a.edu email
address right when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. And then I
got Instagram the year that it came out in 2010.
And at first it was it was fun. It was
fun to share updates and photos and moments from my
life and to connect with people. Um, but soon as
(07:17):
the algorithms changed and I began to overuse it. And
you will note that they designed their platforms to be addictive. Um,
I found myself consumed by it. I would wake up,
touch my phone, see what had happened in the lives
of friends and strangers while I was sleeping. I would
(07:38):
tap my phone throughout my day over 100 times a day. Um,
I was constantly engrossed with my screen. I would also
often put it before my husband. It was making me anxious,
bummed out on my life, feeling like I wasn't good enough,
and I realized that I was actually on track to
spend over six years of my life, um, scrolling social media.
(08:03):
And I shared my story with you last time I
was on, and I write about it in my book.
And it is it. It helped me found the ministry, uh,
wonderfully made that I do today. Um, I experienced really
severe depression as a teen girl and as a young woman. And,
you know, I could have lost my life, but God
really saved me. And so because of that, I see
(08:26):
every second of my life as sacred. And so when
I realized my eyes were open, I said, I'm not
going to I'm not going to do this. And, you know,
we have agency, we can make our decisions and we
have freedom. So I simply deleted all the apps off
my phone. I took a break for several months. Um,
(08:46):
got my life back, got my joy back, my brain healed,
and then I came back using very strict boundaries that
work for me that most a lot of people have
never thought of. So that's that's the story behind it.
S1 (09:02):
And I love what you said in the book, a
direct quote from social media Reset. I want to live
digitally disconnected so I can be spiritually connected to God
and my life. Um, meaning not only God and what
I'm thinking, but the other people that I love and
I care about around me. So as you listen today,
(09:25):
I want you to listen through the prism of those
questions I began with is social media. And we're going
to define our terms here. But is social media kind
of do you do you count on it in your life?
Do you let it fill in those hollow spaces in
your life in some ways, to make you feel less lonely.
(09:48):
And in the process, does that connected lead you to
more disconnection? Social media reset a 30 day guided journey
to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy, as
written by our guest today, Allie Marie Smith. More straight ahead.
(10:14):
I'd love to hear from you today if this touches
a nerve in your soul. (877) 548-3675. Allie Marie Smith is
joining us. She's written social media reset, a 30 day
guided journey to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, let's
(10:35):
find out what that 30 day reset is all about.
And if you have a question or a comment, maybe
you've tried this. Maybe this is something that you have
done and you want to tell us get cast a
vision for those who are listening. Yeah. Your life is
going to be better. It's going to be different. Has
that happened to you or are you in the middle
(10:56):
of the valley? The social media valley. And you feel
kind of numb to life. You feel the joy that
you used to have is not there, and you haven't
been able to connect it with social media per se.
But there's just something that you feel like is is
not firing on all cylinders. Want to hear from you? (877) 548-3675. Um,
(11:22):
that quote that I gave just before the break, I
want to live digitally disconnected so I can be spiritually
connected to God in my life. There are those who
will say, you know, I have connected with so many people,
so many friends I used to have, but we do
Bible studies online. We do, uh, you know, don't throw
social media out with the bathwater. What do you say
(11:44):
to those people?
S2 (11:47):
Yes. So social media can be a powerful tool for good,
but it's really about how much we use it. What
we look at and share and our motivations behind it.
And so the idea of taking a 30 day break, um,
the book is really for girls and women, but men
and boys, of course will definitely benefit by from a
(12:10):
break as well. Research shows that even a few days
away from social media instantly decreases anxiety, depression, and increases happiness.
So the idea is you go off for 30 days,
but it's really a reset for your soul. So it's
an opportunity to draw close to God, to, you know,
wake up to the miracle of your life, to be
(12:31):
present with the people you love, to do the things
that you love. And then after the 30 days, you
are able to learn how to use it with wisdom.
I share 15 boundaries in the back of the book
and I. I have several boundaries. I mean, one instantly
broke my addiction, which I am happy to share. And
(12:53):
so yes, it can be used for so much good,
but we need to put it in its place and
learn to master it so it does not master us.
S1 (13:02):
Okay. Yes, you have to tell me that before. Before
we get to that boundary, though, that that that broke
it for you. Talk about women in comparison or girls
and comparison. You write one of the most damaging components
of social media for women is the chronic social comparisons
it prompts. Comparison is a core part of human psychology
(13:24):
that causes us to evaluate others, ourselves, and our external
environment and circumstances. So what is it with that and
women in particular?
S2 (13:36):
Yeah. So anytime we compare our lives or others, um,
we are instantly typically experience feelings of inadequacy or even pride.
And neither one of those is good. And so we
now know without a doubt that social media causes anxiety, depression,
eating disorders, increases suicide among girls especially, and the suicide
(14:03):
rate increased by young adults ages 10 to 24 over 60%. Today,
over 56% of women feel lonely. And, um. Yeah, it's
it's really I mean, the suicide rate among girls went over,
went up over 145%. And I've worked with girls for
(14:25):
over 20 years. And this social media is truly destroying
girls lives. And we have to say no more. We
can't let this happen on our watch. We have to
do something about it. And even as adult women too.
We can experience those comparisons.
S1 (14:43):
Yes, but isn't it deeper than just the thing that
is making us feel this way? I'm thinking of girls
and they'll post something, and then they get a lot
of likes, and so they feel good about themselves and
they'll do the same thing, and there's no reaction. And
they feel terrible, you know. And what's wrong with me? Um,
(15:04):
that's not that's not social media's struggle. It's the girl
or the woman's struggle internally that she judges her life
by those reactions. Right?
S2 (15:19):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad you said that. And that
is absolutely 100% true. And I started a ministry called
Wonderfully Made for Girls and Women in our mission simply
is to help girls and women find their value and
identity in Christ, and to know that their value and
worth comes from God alone.
S1 (15:41):
Yeah, this happened to me, though the other day. If
you think that I'm. I'm downing women or young girls
for judging themselves. Um, we had Max Lucado on the
program on Monday who prayed about what was going on in,
in Texas. And there was a section of that prayer.
And I said to Tricia and Lisa, who helps out
(16:01):
with the social media stuff for the program, which is
another question. He's like, how do you do if you
use this in your work life? You know, how do
you how do you let go of it? But I said, hey,
maybe we could maybe we could excerpt Max's prayer. You know,
it's like a two minute section of his prayer and
post that on social media. That would be a helpful thing, uh,
(16:22):
that people might hear who didn't hear the program. And
so he did that, and, and there were there was
a lot of response, a lot of people who liked
it and a lot of people who shared it. And
I started feeling this, ah, we're we're worth something now.
You know, I mean, I didn't say that. But on
the on the inside is like, wow, look at that.
Look at how many people liked that. Um, rather than saying,
(16:46):
look at how many more people are exposed to the
prayer of Max, for the people who are going through
this struggle and to pray for the people, the parents
and the those who are, you know, all of that.
It was more it was more me focused that like,
aren't aren't I a good person to have that kind
of idea? Isn't that part of what you're talking about?
S2 (17:09):
Oh, absolutely. And Chris, I will be first to share that.
I experienced that so often when I post. And just recently,
you know, I use my social media to encourage people,
but also to encourage people to take a break off
social media. And I completely do that as well. And
I think it's just normal. Um.
S1 (17:30):
So yeah, it is, it's a human thing and, but
but it is that Self-focus that we get into. So
you mentioned these boundaries. The ones in the back of
the book, you said there was one that that broke
the habit for you. What was that boundary?
S2 (17:47):
Yeah. So I simply took all social media apps off
my phone, and I haven't had any of them on
my phone for over 12 years. And so simply, I'm
not going to. And I put them on my iPad.
So I'm simply not going to carry my iPad to
a restaurant or in the car or all throughout my house.
So that was the number one thing after taking a
(18:08):
break that completely broke my addiction.
S1 (18:11):
So taking it off your phone where it's with you
at every moment of of the day. That helped.
S2 (18:18):
Absolutely. Yes, 100%.
S1 (18:22):
So, so. And then there are other boundaries that you
can set. What if you are. See this is this
is where the shame comes in. Because I will have
a lot of older friends, grandparents, and they will call
and they will talk about, you know, we get together
for Thanksgiving or Christmas, the kids and the grandkids, they're
(18:44):
all staring at their phones. And it's this kind of,
you know, shame on them for doing this. Look up
at your grandparent. I've got a lot of wisdom here.
And we can have fun together and have a relationship,
and they're having a relationship with their phone. It strikes
me that what you're talking about, though, is not shame based.
You're not trying to shame people out of being on
social media. You're casting a vision for what could be
(19:08):
in their life if they tamed this this habit, right?
S2 (19:15):
Absolutely. You know, it's not about what we are saying
no to. It's really about what we are saying yes to.
And so by disconnecting digitally, we can say yes to
living the kind of life we were created to and
embodied life. A life that is present with others and
with God. You know where we're making things with our hands,
(19:36):
where we're meeting people face to face. And it's saying
yes to a better life.
S1 (19:43):
One of the things that I and I think I
may have mentioned this the last time you were here,
doctor Kathy Cook talked about this, and she said that
there were a parent and the child in at the,
at the playground, and the daughter or the son did
something on the monkey bars or whatever, and then came
over and the mom took a picture and the child
(20:07):
came over and said, do you think that's good enough
for Facebook or Instagram or whatever it was? Do you
think that's good enough? That picture that you just took,
do you think that's good enough so that our even
our kids are responding to the the way that we
curate our lives and, and judging even their play as
(20:31):
being worthy of being posted that that's a that's a problem,
isn't it?
S2 (20:38):
Yes, definitely. And I can dive into so many different
subtopics on that. And I do want to share the
idea of not we can now die with more memories
of other people's lives than of our own. And that
is the same with the parents. And so when we're
constantly posting photos and videos in real time, you know,
(20:59):
it takes us from the present moment. And and also,
you know, we we tend to put our value in
it and how many likes we get. And for kids to,
you know, they're going to see, um, how their parents
are interacting with social media as well.
S1 (21:16):
Yes. So it starts with us. It starts with parents, parents,
children pick up from us what we value. You know,
if we say, um, spend more time reading the Bible,
you know, and they look at our lives and they
see us not doing it, you know, they're going to
they're going to notice that they're going to and want
to follow that or not. And that's not determinative. Of course,
(21:38):
you know, you can't force a child to read the
Bible because you do. But when they catch that, rather
than telling them, teaching you to do this, when they
catch that from you, and then on the other side,
the social media, when they catch that something good can happen.
And I think that's one of the reasons why this
book is going to make a difference with a lot
of people. We've talked with Doctor Rosalie de Rossi about
(22:01):
this in her classes at Moody Bible Institute over the
last two decades, and how she has suggested this for
her students and led them through. And I can't remember
if it was a month. It was may have been
a week or two week. This reset, this digital fast
that she asked them to do. And she says the
(22:23):
at the beginning, the anxiety level goes up because I
can't listen to my the music that I want that
I usually have or get on the social media that
I usually use to calm me down. Um, and that's
what Allie Marie Smith has done in social media. Reset
a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect with God,
(22:44):
and reclaim your joy. I'm going to open the phone lines.
I want you to be able to talk with her
and tell us your experience. Ask a question. (877) 548-3675. Rebecca
is in Florida. Hi, Rebecca. Go right ahead.
S3 (22:59):
Hello, Mr.. I forgot what your name was.
S1 (23:02):
Chris. It's just Chris.
S3 (23:04):
This is my first time. Well, first time getting in.
I'm calling from Boca Raton, Florida. I'm a divorced mother
of two grown children. I'm originally from Miami, and I
have two kids in their 30s. And I'm a grandma,
and I'm a grandmother, and, uh, I do have a
cell phone. I grew up without a cell phone. I'm
57 now. I turned 57 this past June and of
(23:27):
this year. and I have nothing against having a cell phone.
I was raised without one. There was no cell phone.
There was no social media. In regards to Facebook, my
family is on it. I only get paid about $19
an hour. I'm a deli clerk, and for those people,
there are many people who are on different pay wages
(23:48):
and the people who are people that are Christians who
are following the Lord like I am. Some of them
cannot see their family. They can't fly anywhere. They may
not be able to drive or take off because they
need to keep working, whether they're married or not. So
Facebook and the Instagram, they have their negatives and positives.
(24:08):
I have Facebook, my family's on it and I see
my family. I look at it every day, but I
have no addictions. I'm not addicted to it. We need
to discipline ourselves. And regarding using cell phones, praise God
for cell phones.
S4 (24:23):
Praise God. Rebecca, I am so glad that you got
through today.
S1 (24:26):
And and thank you for, uh, first, for the very
first time, you gave us a thumbnail sketch of your
life there, and you did. You did that in a
very short amount of time. So I know so much
about you, but the thing that I'm picking up is
the the Facebook posts do make you feel connected. So Ali,
(24:47):
for someone in her situation and her family is scattered
across the country, it sounds like to be able to
see those pictures that helps her not as an addiction,
but just being connected with their daily lives.
S2 (25:01):
Oh, absolutely. And that is exactly, you know, what I
was referencing earlier is that social media can be used
in such an amazing way. It can add value to
our lives. It can allow us to see what our
friends and family are doing to feel connected. Um, but
really what matters is we have to decide how are
(25:24):
we going to use it, and it's really about our
tension behind it and using it in a way that
is going to add value to us and really increase
our wellbeing.
S1 (25:35):
Well, and Rebecca used that word disciplined. I'm disciplined with it.
What about you as you listen today, do you feel
like you have an addiction to social media? Give us
a call (877) 548-3675. Go to the website and you'll find
out more about social media reset.
S5 (26:04):
What is social.
S1 (26:05):
Media doing to us on a soul level? What's it
doing to the next generation? Life coach and author Ali
Marie Smith is encouraging us to hit the reset button
today on Chris Fabry Live online. Chris favorite divorce? Click
through today's information. You'll see it right there. Social media
Reset a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect with
(26:29):
God and reclaim your joy, which is where Deborah comes
in with her. Call Deborah. Tell me. Sign in here.
Tell me what's going on.
S6 (26:39):
Okay. Um, okay. I came from an abusive marriage, I lost,
I lost my children, I lost, um, a lot of
material possessions, but I felt like, uh, in it, I was.
(27:00):
It's like it says in the Bible that you let
go of your family to, um, keep, uh, to keep
growing on the track to God. Well, I had been,
but I had some surgeries, and they they sent me
(27:22):
back a lot, And the last one? I had it up.
I felt like my whole aura went out of whack.
And I'm not doing the things that I enjoyed to do. Uh,
and what I'm doing is I've been reading my Bible
and just praying and trying to get closer with God,
(27:47):
but I've even lost my ability with the churches. I've
gone to a lot of churches, Kingdom halls, things like that,
and I've let go of the social media and I
feel like I'm underwater and I'm not, uh, going forward,
(28:12):
I'm not moving my life forward.
S7 (28:16):
So it sounds like you are.
S1 (28:19):
Even though you've tried. Pride. There's a certain amount of
isolation in your life that you have with other people.
You live alone? Probably.
S6 (28:29):
Yes I do.
S7 (28:30):
Yeah. Okay. All right. So I don't know that.
S1 (28:33):
Social media is exactly what we're talking about, but it
fits in here. Because what I'm hearing from Deborah Ali
is I had a joy. I had purpose in my life,
and I just. I feel numb to all of this
that's going on around me. And I want to I
want to draw closer to God. So what do you
(28:55):
say to Deborah?
S2 (28:57):
Um, first of all, I want to say that I
am so sorry for all the losses you have experienced
in your life, and I can't imagine how heartbreaking that is.
And sometimes we, you know, we don't understand the struggles
that we go through. And, you know, I just want
(29:21):
to encourage you is that I hear what you're saying
is you really are showing up. You're reading your Bible.
You're you're you're drawing close to God. And, you know,
even in those unseen moments where we feel so disconnected
from God, he he really is there. And I know
that he will draw close to the brokenhearted. And so
(29:43):
my prayer for you, Deborah, is just that God will
sustain you. And and no matter what we experience in
this life, we have to trust that God's eternal plan
for us is good and we may experience a lot
of loss, depression, sadness, grief in this world. But yet
(30:06):
we can hope that one day God will wipe away
every single tear and he will make things right, and
he will heal us, and we will experience that eternal joy.
So I just pray for you. And again, I'm sorry.
And I pray for God's supernatural peace. And I ask
that he brings people into your life, um, to support you.
(30:30):
And I'm so sorry.
S7 (30:32):
Deborah.
S1 (30:33):
Uh, hang on. Tricia's going to get your information because
you mentioned different churches. It sounds like you're kind of searching,
and I the one thing that I would pray is
to get into a to find a really solid, Bible
believing church that you can get into, maybe even a
small group study that you can be with where you're
with other people asking questions, you know, looking specifically into
(30:57):
God's word. And, uh, I don't exactly know what I
want to send you, but I want Tricia to get
your information. So you hang on. Uh, and and she'll
get that Ali Marie Smith is with us in the
back of the book. The very the end of the book,
you conclude it with. And this may be for more
for the younger readers that you have, but also middle
(31:20):
aged and older readers. How to how to connect with God,
how to actually receive the forgiveness that God is offering
through Jesus. That's an important message for you, isn't it?
S2 (31:33):
Yes, absolutely. Um, you know, I think it's so important
for us to, to know that the things that we
have done in our lives, um, God removes those as
far as the East is from the west. And I
found that I simply never found the peace and the
(31:53):
joy that my soul craved in social media or in
the ways of the world or in toxic relationships. And
I say that, you know, in order to have joy
like no one else, we really have to live like
no one else. And so we do have this, this
freedom to make our own decisions, to walk away from
(32:15):
a life that is self-focused or a life of sin,
and to return to God and to return to the
ways that he, you know, he really created us to
live with others fully present in our lives and having
our heart and our mind so fixed on the promises
and the truths of God, and doing all we can
(32:38):
to fight for our mental and our spiritual well-being.
S1 (32:43):
Yeah, because there is an enemy who does want you
to have that. I think that's one of the things
that the enemy does is he wants to give, provide
as many distractions that fragment us as individuals, and God
wants us to be whole. As well as holy. You know,
(33:03):
he makes us holy because of the what Jesus did
for us and gives us that. But he wants us
to be whole. And if the enemy can keep us
fragmented Augmented and distracted all the time with all this
other stuff. Then he wins, you know. If he can't,
if he can't steal our souls, then he can at
(33:24):
least thwart what God wants us, wants to do inside.
And I think that's why one of the reasons I
wanted to have you on here, because this is not
just about, you know, I do this over here, and
I don't do this. And here, here's the list of
things that I don't do and the things that I
do it. This is at the soul level that social
(33:46):
media and these kinds of things are doing something inside
a deeply inside of us that we can't always see.
I see that as the, the difference in what you write.
Is that true?
S2 (34:00):
Yeah. So we are familiar with what social media is
doing to our mental health and a lot about our relationships.
But I do want to for us to think about
the serious spiritual ramifications. And first we have to ask ourselves,
how do I want to spend my life? What do
I want my legacy to be? You know, every second
(34:22):
we spend on our phones or on social media matters,
we cannot unsee the things we see. We cannot unhear
the things we hear. Seconds become minutes become. Hours become.
Days become years of our life. And this is shocking
to put in perspective. But one hour a day on
your phone or social media, um, from the age of
(34:44):
13 to 80. However, I have a formula in the
back of my book that you can find the exact
amount of time you're spending on social media, but one
hour a day can come out to over three years
of your life spent on social media or your phone.
2 to 3 hours can come out to 6 to
8 years of your life, and four or more hours
can come out to over 11 years of our life.
(35:08):
So we have to ask ourselves, how is this affecting me?
How is it affecting my mental health, my relationship with God,
my relationships? And you know, when we get to the
end of our lives, we will have to give an
account before God for how we spent our time. And
we simply are so far removed from this embodied life
(35:29):
God created us to be. And going back to my
point is so terrifying is we can now die with
more memories of other people's lives. If we scold for
scrolled for three hours, we would see over 4000 visual
posts a day from the age of 20 to 80,
that comes out to over 80 million views, images, posts.
(35:53):
And the thing about seeing on like seeing photos and
videos is they're so much more strongly imprinted in our
minds than actual real moments. And for parents is you
can die with more memories of other people's kids. So
the spiritual ramifications, Chris, are so serious. But the great
news is it doesn't have to be this way and
(36:15):
we can live differently because we are not called to
conform to the patterns of this world, and we do
not have to conform to the social media circus. We
can live better lives.
S1 (36:27):
That's Allie Marie Smith. Social Media Reset is our featured
resource at Chris favorite divorce. When we come back, I
want you to hear from someone who did exactly what
Allie is talking about. It was kind of a forced
reset in his life, and you'll hear from him straight ahead.
This is Chris Fabry live online. Chris Fabry Live.com.
S5 (37:01):
This is, I think, a really important.
S1 (37:04):
Topic for us today. And we could we could have
these conversations all week long about the dangers of social media.
But the question is, what do you do? How do
how do you break out of the rut that you
may be in? Do you see yourself and you could
be defensive and say, well, I'm not addicted, I'm not addicted.
But then if you ask the other people in your life,
(37:24):
do you feel like I'm present with you all the time?
Do you feel you know? And what is that disconnection
that comes? That's why Allie Marie Smith wrote social media reset.
It's a 30 day guided journey and you can see
it at archive.org. Here's a fellow who went through double that.
(37:45):
Brad's in Indiana. Brad. Tell me what happened to you.
S8 (37:49):
Hi. How's it going? Um, I would say I had
an addiction to social media. I was all the time
checking my phone. Um, I always wanted to see what
was going on, and, um, I would even probably check
it more often than I needed to. Um, I would
take little fasts here and there from it. Like I
(38:12):
take a month off, say, I'm not going to get
on social media for a month. Um, but, uh, recently
I went on vacation, and when I came back after
I took all my pictures from vacation, um, I got
on my social media and my account was hacked, and
(38:32):
it was looking very unhopeful as in, I would not
be able to get back into my my Facebook account. And, um,
I tried everything and I was very down about it
because that was the only way that I would contact
several of my friends. Um, I think I had probably
(38:55):
600 people on there. And, you know, some of them
was close friends and some of them wasn't. And I
never had their phone number because I would just send
a message through messenger. security and um, so from for
about two months from April all the way till July,
I didn't have a Facebook and um, it was uh,
(39:20):
it was quite an adjustment. So I went from doing
a fast to now I'm not ever going to have
social media, but recently I got it back, so.
S1 (39:32):
Okay. So what what happened in that two month period
then when you couldn't have access? Um, what happened on
the inside? Did you feel like you were more calm, more,
more present with the people around you? What happened?
S8 (39:50):
Uh, yeah, I would say I was more, um, present
with the people because they'd all be looking at their phones,
whereas I'd be like, I can't really look at my
phone other than a text message I got from somebody. Um,
but they would be, you know, looking through all their
social media at break or, um, wherever we would be. And, uh, yeah.
(40:13):
So I was probably more present with the people, uh,
talking about what's going on during the day, and they
would know all the news of everything that's happened, and
I would be out of the loop of every thing
going on because I don't even watch TV. I just stream.
S1 (40:30):
Yes. Bingo. Right there. The missing out, are they other
people know the things that I don't know. And I
want to know what everybody knows. And so if you're connected,
if you're on social media, you see all those different
things or something that they're laughing at. This has happened
to me a lot. Ali, did you see the one
about the little kid and everybody's. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
(40:50):
I have no idea what you're what you're talking about.
So you feel on the outside looking in on those things.
So with all of that as a precursor then what
Brad said, Ali, what do you say?
S2 (41:05):
Yeah, well, a couple of things. First, I will say, um,
for men and women, uh, how they are affected by
social media can be really different. Um, so women are,
you know, wired a little more sensitively. But really, I
recommend that everyone who uses social media at least once,
like for a month or so, to really pull back
(41:27):
for at least 30 days because it's really going to
reset your brain's pathways. It's going to break any addiction.
It's going to make you feel calm, less anxious, um,
more present, and then at that break can help you,
you know, come back and use it more intentionally and wisely. Um,
and again, research shows like after week, so many people are,
(41:52):
you know, instantly happier, less anxious. And the other point is,
how much time of our lives are we going to
get back? Right? So, you know, even three hours, a
day for a month. We're going to get back 90
hours of our lives. And what can we do with
that time differently? And how can we invest that time
in other people and our gifts and in things that
(42:15):
that we enjoy? So it is kind of saying, um,
really yes to a lot of things and temporarily, temporarily.
And you can always, you know, go back to using it,
but in a healthier way.
S1 (42:26):
Yes. And and that's one of the things that you
suggested in the book. I saw that if you delete
the app from your phone, if that's how you use
social media, usually, and most people do, you delete the app,
you keep the log in information, or you ask a
friend or family member you trust to change your password
(42:47):
so that the way you know and you really have
to trust this other person so that they know how
to get back in so that you don't just, you know,
in a in a fit of wanting to see what's
going on, get logged back in there, right?
S2 (43:03):
Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we have to have grace
with ourselves and know that these platforms, Facebook, which is
now meta, intentionally designed these platforms to be addictive. We
get hits of dopamine from every notification, like the same response,
same same with gambling and drugs and and what's so interesting.
(43:24):
You know, they want to keep us on there as
long so that they profit. You know, they make over
$130 billion a year. And, you know, we think it's free,
but we are actually the product being sold because they
make over $56 per user a year off of our
time scrolling. So I say have grace with yourself. It
really is designed to be addiction. Um, to be addictive.
S1 (43:46):
How do you manage it then? If you go back
to it, you go back to social media and you
want to do it responsibly, responsibly. How do you manage that?
S2 (43:57):
Well, to be honest, it really is hard. It takes
a lot of discipline and self-control, but we can do
it because we know that God has given us that spirit.
And so, you know, taking those steps of having at
least a month, a month off every year. And then, um,
I have so many boundaries that people can implement. And
(44:18):
in the book I have over 15 boundaries. You can
set time limits, app limits, you can take dedicated days
or weekends off. You can unfollow or mute. You can
be really selective about who you follow. Only follow a
few accounts that make your life better. Um, you can
turn off all the notifications on your phone. Um, you
can have physical boundaries. Just keep your phone away from
(44:40):
you for part of the day. Also, get a landline.
I just got a landline. Um, and that can even be,
you know, an obstacle so you don't constantly have to
have your phone with you and really use it purposefully,
like I did. You can take the apps off your phone.
You can access them on a tablet device or on
your computer, um, and really show up for other people
(45:02):
to encourage them and really rather than consume them. So
there's so many amazing boundaries we can implement. So it
actually adds value to us. And, you know, then we
can happily, like, miss out on all the junk it
can bring.
S1 (45:14):
Yes. Well, and that's one of the things that I
love about the book, because every day, all 30 days
that you go through this, it's like you're walking right
beside of us and helping us. You know, if you're
feeling a little bit anxious today because of this, it's
perfectly fine. This is this is what it was designed
to do to make you feel this, to go back
(45:36):
to it. So it's very helpful. I also like the appendix,
where you list 75 things you can do instead of
scrolling on social media, and there are some, just read
a book under a tree. And don't forget your bug spray.
Have a picnic in the park. Pack lots of cheese
and chocolate. Uh, take a deep breath. Fill your lungs
with air. Say a prayer of gratitude. As you exhale,
(46:00):
move your body with joy and freedom. Volunteer for something.
Make something with your hands. And as you look at
this for yourself and then for the next generation, you
start to see, wow, there maybe there is a different
way to live. And if you go to the website,
you'll see the featured resource by Allie Murray Smith. Social
(46:22):
media reset a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect
with God and reclaim your joy. Allie, it's a joy
to get to talk with you today. Thanks a lot
for the help. Come alongside us today.
S2 (46:36):
Thanks for having me, Chris.
S1 (46:38):
Again, Allie Marie Smith's Social Media Reset is our featured
resource at Chris Fabry Lives. Our program is a production
of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
Today at the radio backyard fence. Some help for anybody
who needs a social media reset. How do you know
if you need one? Let me ask you some questions.
Answer this yes or no. And if you if you don't,
I'm going to reclaim my time. Okay. Just yes or no.
Do you spend more time on social media than you
intend to? Do you often check social media first thing
(00:29):
in the morning or last thing at night? Do you
feel anxious, restless, or irritable when you can't access social media?
Do you use social media as an escape from sadness, loneliness,
or boredom? Do you feel upset if the response to
your posts don't get much response? Those are just a
(00:52):
few of the questions that our guests guest singular wants
you to think about today, because she believes the draw
of the digital world is making us more anxious, more depressed,
more distracted and making us more alone. How? In a
connected world, how do we feel alone? Her audience is
(01:14):
mainly women, young and old. I think men are dealing
with the same thing. Let's talk with Ali Marie Smith
today about a 30 day plan to unplug, reconnect with God,
and reclaim your joy. Straight ahead on Chris Fabry live
online Chris Fabry live. Org. Let me thank our team.
Ryan McConaughey doing all things technical. Tricia is our producer
in the chair today. Rihanna is going to be answering
(01:36):
your calls. Thank you for your support. We get to
have these conversations daily meetings because friends and partners join
with us and lend their support. So if today's topic
hits a nerve with you, call or click through to
support the program or thank you. This month is Pastor
Colin Smith's excellent study. He calls it Drive Through the Bible.
(01:57):
It's designed to help you see how all of Scripture
fits together in one glorious narrative of God's mercy and
grace over thousands of years. I hear this all the time. I.
I get into the Old Testament, even some sections of
the New Testament, I get lost. I don't understand it.
I can't see how this fits together. This is the
book that will help you drive through the Bible. And
(02:19):
it's our thank you. This month, give a gift of
any size 866 95 Fabbri is our number. Fabbri (866) 953-2279
or go to Chris Fabbri Livorno. Scroll down. You'll see
how you can give right there. Thank you for your
support here in the middle of the summer in July.
(02:40):
Chris Fabbri, Livorno okay, so here's my observation. Let me
get up on my, uh, on my soapbox. The other day,
I remembered an old song from the 1970s. I was
outside in the heat of summer in Tucson, Arizona. It
was like this song just popped into my head and
I could think I could. I could sing, hum along
(03:01):
the the lyrics and get the chorus of the song.
I remembered those, I couldn't remember who sang it. What
was that artist's name? I can see his face from
the 1970s. He had long blonde hair. It was one
of those one hit wonders. So I did what you do.
I grabbed my phone, and I. Or I got my
mouse and I thought, I'll just Google this. But before
(03:23):
I pressed the button, I paused and I thought this.
What's going to happen if I don't look this up immediately?
If I don't know the answer to this question, what's
going to happen inside of me? How long will it
take me to remember? And how am I ever going
to know if I will remember, if I don't look
it up? And I thought of the we played this
back and forth of Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz about
(03:46):
Israel supporting Israel, and Tucker asked Cruz, where in the
Bible does it say we ought to support the nation
of Israel? And Senator Cruz said, I can't remember right now.
You pull out your phone, you know, plug it in,
you'll find out. So my observation is we are becoming
more dependent than ever on that powerful device in our
(04:07):
pocket or the computer, which is not a new thought.
But if we become dependent on the device to give
every left turn and right turn that we need to
take to get to where we want to go pretty soon,
you're asking the device to make your life better, easier,
more comfortable. And then you rely on it to make
(04:28):
you feel the way you want to feel. So the
first thing we have to do is to see how
much this is going on every day, not in other people.
It's so much easier for me to see it in
other people's lives, but to see what it's doing in
our own life. And once you see it, then you
(04:48):
can decide what to do. That's what I think Allie
Marie Smith has done. and like many topics we present here,
is a guest who has allowed the wound in her
own life to be a place of healing, not only
for herself as but others as well. You and me.
Her name is Ali Marie Smith. She's an award winning author, speaker,
(05:09):
podcast host, life coach, founder and CEO of Wonderfully Made.
We spoke with her a couple of years ago. Her
latest is Social Media Reset, a 30 day guided journey
to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy. It
sounds good. How do we do that, though? Hey, Ali,
welcome to the program. Welcome back. How are you doing?
S2 (05:30):
Hey, Chris, it's so fun to talk to you again.
And it's an honor to be back. And I am
a big fan of yours. I don't know how you
sleep and do a radio program with with all the
books that you write, so it's great to talk to
you and your listeners.
S1 (05:46):
What I just said, am I getting close to the
bone of what you're talking about?
S2 (05:52):
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Um, as a culture, we have become
just so reliant on our devices, and we really are
living in a digital world. You know, everything from our
the news and the TV and movies and and our
phones and social media. And it really has taken over
(06:15):
our lives and really shaped our culture. It's shaping who
we are becoming. Um, especially since the onset of social
media 21 years ago. Um, you know, I always say
that our world has never been so lonely, depressed, divided, anxious,
and even suicidal. Yes.
S1 (06:37):
And isolated. And you can go on and on and
on with those things. So that thing that I just
said about you have to first. You have to see it.
When did you see yourself and what was going on
inside of you? How did you figure that out?
S2 (06:54):
Sure. Well, I got social media right when it came out.
I was in college. I had to have a.edu email
address right when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. And then I
got Instagram the year that it came out in 2010.
And at first it was it was fun. It was
fun to share updates and photos and moments from my
life and to connect with people. Um, but soon as
(07:17):
the algorithms changed and I began to overuse it. And
you will note that they designed their platforms to be addictive. Um,
I found myself consumed by it. I would wake up,
touch my phone, see what had happened in the lives
of friends and strangers while I was sleeping. I would
(07:38):
tap my phone throughout my day over 100 times a day. Um,
I was constantly engrossed with my screen. I would also
often put it before my husband. It was making me anxious,
bummed out on my life, feeling like I wasn't good enough,
and I realized that I was actually on track to
spend over six years of my life, um, scrolling social media.
(08:03):
And I shared my story with you last time I
was on, and I write about it in my book.
And it is it. It helped me found the ministry, uh,
wonderfully made that I do today. Um, I experienced really
severe depression as a teen girl and as a young woman. And,
you know, I could have lost my life, but God
really saved me. And so because of that, I see
(08:26):
every second of my life as sacred. And so when
I realized my eyes were open, I said, I'm not
going to I'm not going to do this. And, you know,
we have agency, we can make our decisions and we
have freedom. So I simply deleted all the apps off
my phone. I took a break for several months. Um,
(08:46):
got my life back, got my joy back, my brain healed,
and then I came back using very strict boundaries that
work for me that most a lot of people have
never thought of. So that's that's the story behind it.
S1 (09:02):
And I love what you said in the book, a
direct quote from social media Reset. I want to live
digitally disconnected so I can be spiritually connected to God
and my life. Um, meaning not only God and what
I'm thinking, but the other people that I love and
I care about around me. So as you listen today,
(09:25):
I want you to listen through the prism of those
questions I began with is social media. And we're going
to define our terms here. But is social media kind
of do you do you count on it in your life?
Do you let it fill in those hollow spaces in
your life in some ways, to make you feel less lonely.
(09:48):
And in the process, does that connected lead you to
more disconnection? Social media reset a 30 day guided journey
to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy, as
written by our guest today, Allie Marie Smith. More straight ahead.
(10:14):
I'd love to hear from you today if this touches
a nerve in your soul. (877) 548-3675. Allie Marie Smith is
joining us. She's written social media reset, a 30 day
guided journey to unplug, reconnect with God and reclaim your joy.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, let's
(10:35):
find out what that 30 day reset is all about.
And if you have a question or a comment, maybe
you've tried this. Maybe this is something that you have
done and you want to tell us get cast a
vision for those who are listening. Yeah. Your life is
going to be better. It's going to be different. Has
that happened to you or are you in the middle
(10:56):
of the valley? The social media valley. And you feel
kind of numb to life. You feel the joy that
you used to have is not there, and you haven't
been able to connect it with social media per se.
But there's just something that you feel like is is
not firing on all cylinders. Want to hear from you? (877) 548-3675. Um,
(11:22):
that quote that I gave just before the break, I
want to live digitally disconnected so I can be spiritually
connected to God in my life. There are those who
will say, you know, I have connected with so many people,
so many friends I used to have, but we do
Bible studies online. We do, uh, you know, don't throw
social media out with the bathwater. What do you say
(11:44):
to those people?
S2 (11:47):
Yes. So social media can be a powerful tool for good,
but it's really about how much we use it. What
we look at and share and our motivations behind it.
And so the idea of taking a 30 day break, um,
the book is really for girls and women, but men
and boys, of course will definitely benefit by from a
(12:10):
break as well. Research shows that even a few days
away from social media instantly decreases anxiety, depression, and increases happiness.
So the idea is you go off for 30 days,
but it's really a reset for your soul. So it's
an opportunity to draw close to God, to, you know,
wake up to the miracle of your life, to be
(12:31):
present with the people you love, to do the things
that you love. And then after the 30 days, you
are able to learn how to use it with wisdom.
I share 15 boundaries in the back of the book
and I. I have several boundaries. I mean, one instantly
broke my addiction, which I am happy to share. And
(12:53):
so yes, it can be used for so much good,
but we need to put it in its place and
learn to master it so it does not master us.
S1 (13:02):
Okay. Yes, you have to tell me that before. Before
we get to that boundary, though, that that that broke
it for you. Talk about women in comparison or girls
and comparison. You write one of the most damaging components
of social media for women is the chronic social comparisons
it prompts. Comparison is a core part of human psychology
(13:24):
that causes us to evaluate others, ourselves, and our external
environment and circumstances. So what is it with that and
women in particular?
S2 (13:36):
Yeah. So anytime we compare our lives or others, um,
we are instantly typically experience feelings of inadequacy or even pride.
And neither one of those is good. And so we
now know without a doubt that social media causes anxiety, depression,
eating disorders, increases suicide among girls especially, and the suicide
(14:03):
rate increased by young adults ages 10 to 24 over 60%. Today,
over 56% of women feel lonely. And, um. Yeah, it's
it's really I mean, the suicide rate among girls went over,
went up over 145%. And I've worked with girls for
(14:25):
over 20 years. And this social media is truly destroying
girls lives. And we have to say no more. We
can't let this happen on our watch. We have to
do something about it. And even as adult women too.
We can experience those comparisons.
S1 (14:43):
Yes, but isn't it deeper than just the thing that
is making us feel this way? I'm thinking of girls
and they'll post something, and then they get a lot
of likes, and so they feel good about themselves and
they'll do the same thing, and there's no reaction. And
they feel terrible, you know. And what's wrong with me? Um,
(15:04):
that's not that's not social media's struggle. It's the girl
or the woman's struggle internally that she judges her life
by those reactions. Right?
S2 (15:19):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad you said that. And that
is absolutely 100% true. And I started a ministry called
Wonderfully Made for Girls and Women in our mission simply
is to help girls and women find their value and
identity in Christ, and to know that their value and
worth comes from God alone.
S1 (15:41):
Yeah, this happened to me, though the other day. If
you think that I'm. I'm downing women or young girls
for judging themselves. Um, we had Max Lucado on the
program on Monday who prayed about what was going on in,
in Texas. And there was a section of that prayer.
And I said to Tricia and Lisa, who helps out
(16:01):
with the social media stuff for the program, which is
another question. He's like, how do you do if you
use this in your work life? You know, how do
you how do you let go of it? But I said, hey,
maybe we could maybe we could excerpt Max's prayer. You know,
it's like a two minute section of his prayer and
post that on social media. That would be a helpful thing, uh,
(16:22):
that people might hear who didn't hear the program. And
so he did that, and, and there were there was
a lot of response, a lot of people who liked
it and a lot of people who shared it. And
I started feeling this, ah, we're we're worth something now.
You know, I mean, I didn't say that. But on
the on the inside is like, wow, look at that.
Look at how many people liked that. Um, rather than saying,
(16:46):
look at how many more people are exposed to the
prayer of Max, for the people who are going through
this struggle and to pray for the people, the parents
and the those who are, you know, all of that.
It was more it was more me focused that like,
aren't aren't I a good person to have that kind
of idea? Isn't that part of what you're talking about?
S2 (17:09):
Oh, absolutely. And Chris, I will be first to share that.
I experienced that so often when I post. And just recently,
you know, I use my social media to encourage people,
but also to encourage people to take a break off
social media. And I completely do that as well. And
I think it's just normal. Um.
S1 (17:30):
So yeah, it is, it's a human thing and, but
but it is that Self-focus that we get into. So
you mentioned these boundaries. The ones in the back of
the book, you said there was one that that broke
the habit for you. What was that boundary?
S2 (17:47):
Yeah. So I simply took all social media apps off
my phone, and I haven't had any of them on
my phone for over 12 years. And so simply, I'm
not going to. And I put them on my iPad.
So I'm simply not going to carry my iPad to
a restaurant or in the car or all throughout my house.
So that was the number one thing after taking a
(18:08):
break that completely broke my addiction.
S1 (18:11):
So taking it off your phone where it's with you
at every moment of of the day. That helped.
S2 (18:18):
Absolutely. Yes, 100%.
S1 (18:22):
So, so. And then there are other boundaries that you
can set. What if you are. See this is this
is where the shame comes in. Because I will have
a lot of older friends, grandparents, and they will call
and they will talk about, you know, we get together
for Thanksgiving or Christmas, the kids and the grandkids, they're
(18:44):
all staring at their phones. And it's this kind of,
you know, shame on them for doing this. Look up
at your grandparent. I've got a lot of wisdom here.
And we can have fun together and have a relationship,
and they're having a relationship with their phone. It strikes
me that what you're talking about, though, is not shame based.
You're not trying to shame people out of being on
social media. You're casting a vision for what could be
(19:08):
in their life if they tamed this this habit, right?
S2 (19:15):
Absolutely. You know, it's not about what we are saying
no to. It's really about what we are saying yes to.
And so by disconnecting digitally, we can say yes to
living the kind of life we were created to and
embodied life. A life that is present with others and
with God. You know where we're making things with our hands,
(19:36):
where we're meeting people face to face. And it's saying
yes to a better life.
S1 (19:43):
One of the things that I and I think I
may have mentioned this the last time you were here,
doctor Kathy Cook talked about this, and she said that
there were a parent and the child in at the,
at the playground, and the daughter or the son did
something on the monkey bars or whatever, and then came
over and the mom took a picture and the child
(20:07):
came over and said, do you think that's good enough
for Facebook or Instagram or whatever it was? Do you
think that's good enough? That picture that you just took,
do you think that's good enough so that our even
our kids are responding to the the way that we
curate our lives and, and judging even their play as
(20:31):
being worthy of being posted that that's a that's a problem,
isn't it?
S2 (20:38):
Yes, definitely. And I can dive into so many different
subtopics on that. And I do want to share the
idea of not we can now die with more memories
of other people's lives than of our own. And that
is the same with the parents. And so when we're
constantly posting photos and videos in real time, you know,
(20:59):
it takes us from the present moment. And and also,
you know, we we tend to put our value in
it and how many likes we get. And for kids to,
you know, they're going to see, um, how their parents
are interacting with social media as well.
S1 (21:16):
Yes. So it starts with us. It starts with parents, parents,
children pick up from us what we value. You know,
if we say, um, spend more time reading the Bible,
you know, and they look at our lives and they
see us not doing it, you know, they're going to
they're going to notice that they're going to and want
to follow that or not. And that's not determinative. Of course,
(21:38):
you know, you can't force a child to read the
Bible because you do. But when they catch that, rather
than telling them, teaching you to do this, when they
catch that from you, and then on the other side,
the social media, when they catch that something good can happen.
And I think that's one of the reasons why this
book is going to make a difference with a lot
of people. We've talked with Doctor Rosalie de Rossi about
(22:01):
this in her classes at Moody Bible Institute over the
last two decades, and how she has suggested this for
her students and led them through. And I can't remember
if it was a month. It was may have been
a week or two week. This reset, this digital fast
that she asked them to do. And she says the
(22:23):
at the beginning, the anxiety level goes up because I
can't listen to my the music that I want that
I usually have or get on the social media that
I usually use to calm me down. Um, and that's
what Allie Marie Smith has done in social media. Reset
a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect with God,
(22:44):
and reclaim your joy. I'm going to open the phone lines.
I want you to be able to talk with her
and tell us your experience. Ask a question. (877) 548-3675. Rebecca
is in Florida. Hi, Rebecca. Go right ahead.
S3 (22:59):
Hello, Mr.. I forgot what your name was.
S1 (23:02):
Chris. It's just Chris.
S3 (23:04):
This is my first time. Well, first time getting in.
I'm calling from Boca Raton, Florida. I'm a divorced mother
of two grown children. I'm originally from Miami, and I
have two kids in their 30s. And I'm a grandma,
and I'm a grandmother, and, uh, I do have a
cell phone. I grew up without a cell phone. I'm
57 now. I turned 57 this past June and of
(23:27):
this year. and I have nothing against having a cell phone.
I was raised without one. There was no cell phone.
There was no social media. In regards to Facebook, my
family is on it. I only get paid about $19
an hour. I'm a deli clerk, and for those people,
there are many people who are on different pay wages
(23:48):
and the people who are people that are Christians who
are following the Lord like I am. Some of them
cannot see their family. They can't fly anywhere. They may
not be able to drive or take off because they
need to keep working, whether they're married or not. So
Facebook and the Instagram, they have their negatives and positives.
(24:08):
I have Facebook, my family's on it and I see
my family. I look at it every day, but I
have no addictions. I'm not addicted to it. We need
to discipline ourselves. And regarding using cell phones, praise God
for cell phones.
S4 (24:23):
Praise God. Rebecca, I am so glad that you got
through today.
S1 (24:26):
And and thank you for, uh, first, for the very
first time, you gave us a thumbnail sketch of your
life there, and you did. You did that in a
very short amount of time. So I know so much
about you, but the thing that I'm picking up is
the the Facebook posts do make you feel connected. So Ali,
(24:47):
for someone in her situation and her family is scattered
across the country, it sounds like to be able to
see those pictures that helps her not as an addiction,
but just being connected with their daily lives.
S2 (25:01):
Oh, absolutely. And that is exactly, you know, what I
was referencing earlier is that social media can be used
in such an amazing way. It can add value to
our lives. It can allow us to see what our
friends and family are doing to feel connected. Um, but
really what matters is we have to decide how are
(25:24):
we going to use it, and it's really about our
tension behind it and using it in a way that
is going to add value to us and really increase
our wellbeing.
S1 (25:35):
Well, and Rebecca used that word disciplined. I'm disciplined with it.
What about you as you listen today, do you feel
like you have an addiction to social media? Give us
a call (877) 548-3675. Go to the website and you'll find
out more about social media reset.
S5 (26:04):
What is social.
S1 (26:05):
Media doing to us on a soul level? What's it
doing to the next generation? Life coach and author Ali
Marie Smith is encouraging us to hit the reset button
today on Chris Fabry Live online. Chris favorite divorce? Click
through today's information. You'll see it right there. Social media
Reset a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect with
(26:29):
God and reclaim your joy, which is where Deborah comes
in with her. Call Deborah. Tell me. Sign in here.
Tell me what's going on.
S6 (26:39):
Okay. Um, okay. I came from an abusive marriage, I lost,
I lost my children, I lost, um, a lot of
material possessions, but I felt like, uh, in it, I was.
(27:00):
It's like it says in the Bible that you let
go of your family to, um, keep, uh, to keep
growing on the track to God. Well, I had been,
but I had some surgeries, and they they sent me
(27:22):
back a lot, And the last one? I had it up.
I felt like my whole aura went out of whack.
And I'm not doing the things that I enjoyed to do. Uh,
and what I'm doing is I've been reading my Bible
and just praying and trying to get closer with God,
(27:47):
but I've even lost my ability with the churches. I've
gone to a lot of churches, Kingdom halls, things like that,
and I've let go of the social media and I
feel like I'm underwater and I'm not, uh, going forward,
(28:12):
I'm not moving my life forward.
S7 (28:16):
So it sounds like you are.
S1 (28:19):
Even though you've tried. Pride. There's a certain amount of
isolation in your life that you have with other people.
You live alone? Probably.
S6 (28:29):
Yes I do.
S7 (28:30):
Yeah. Okay. All right. So I don't know that.
S1 (28:33):
Social media is exactly what we're talking about, but it
fits in here. Because what I'm hearing from Deborah Ali
is I had a joy. I had purpose in my life,
and I just. I feel numb to all of this
that's going on around me. And I want to I
want to draw closer to God. So what do you
(28:55):
say to Deborah?
S2 (28:57):
Um, first of all, I want to say that I
am so sorry for all the losses you have experienced
in your life, and I can't imagine how heartbreaking that is.
And sometimes we, you know, we don't understand the struggles
that we go through. And, you know, I just want
(29:21):
to encourage you is that I hear what you're saying
is you really are showing up. You're reading your Bible.
You're you're you're drawing close to God. And, you know,
even in those unseen moments where we feel so disconnected
from God, he he really is there. And I know
that he will draw close to the brokenhearted. And so
(29:43):
my prayer for you, Deborah, is just that God will
sustain you. And and no matter what we experience in
this life, we have to trust that God's eternal plan
for us is good and we may experience a lot
of loss, depression, sadness, grief in this world. But yet
(30:06):
we can hope that one day God will wipe away
every single tear and he will make things right, and
he will heal us, and we will experience that eternal joy.
So I just pray for you. And again, I'm sorry.
And I pray for God's supernatural peace. And I ask
that he brings people into your life, um, to support you.
(30:30):
And I'm so sorry.
S7 (30:32):
Deborah.
S1 (30:33):
Uh, hang on. Tricia's going to get your information because
you mentioned different churches. It sounds like you're kind of searching,
and I the one thing that I would pray is
to get into a to find a really solid, Bible
believing church that you can get into, maybe even a
small group study that you can be with where you're
with other people asking questions, you know, looking specifically into
(30:57):
God's word. And, uh, I don't exactly know what I
want to send you, but I want Tricia to get
your information. So you hang on. Uh, and and she'll
get that Ali Marie Smith is with us in the
back of the book. The very the end of the book,
you conclude it with. And this may be for more
for the younger readers that you have, but also middle
(31:20):
aged and older readers. How to how to connect with God,
how to actually receive the forgiveness that God is offering
through Jesus. That's an important message for you, isn't it?
S2 (31:33):
Yes, absolutely. Um, you know, I think it's so important
for us to, to know that the things that we
have done in our lives, um, God removes those as
far as the East is from the west. And I
found that I simply never found the peace and the
(31:53):
joy that my soul craved in social media or in
the ways of the world or in toxic relationships. And
I say that, you know, in order to have joy
like no one else, we really have to live like
no one else. And so we do have this, this
freedom to make our own decisions, to walk away from
(32:15):
a life that is self-focused or a life of sin,
and to return to God and to return to the
ways that he, you know, he really created us to
live with others fully present in our lives and having
our heart and our mind so fixed on the promises
and the truths of God, and doing all we can
(32:38):
to fight for our mental and our spiritual well-being.
S1 (32:43):
Yeah, because there is an enemy who does want you
to have that. I think that's one of the things
that the enemy does is he wants to give, provide
as many distractions that fragment us as individuals, and God
wants us to be whole. As well as holy. You know,
(33:03):
he makes us holy because of the what Jesus did
for us and gives us that. But he wants us
to be whole. And if the enemy can keep us
fragmented Augmented and distracted all the time with all this
other stuff. Then he wins, you know. If he can't,
if he can't steal our souls, then he can at
(33:24):
least thwart what God wants us, wants to do inside.
And I think that's why one of the reasons I
wanted to have you on here, because this is not
just about, you know, I do this over here, and
I don't do this. And here, here's the list of
things that I don't do and the things that I
do it. This is at the soul level that social
(33:46):
media and these kinds of things are doing something inside
a deeply inside of us that we can't always see.
I see that as the, the difference in what you write.
Is that true?
S2 (34:00):
Yeah. So we are familiar with what social media is
doing to our mental health and a lot about our relationships.
But I do want to for us to think about
the serious spiritual ramifications. And first we have to ask ourselves,
how do I want to spend my life? What do
I want my legacy to be? You know, every second
(34:22):
we spend on our phones or on social media matters,
we cannot unsee the things we see. We cannot unhear
the things we hear. Seconds become minutes become. Hours become.
Days become years of our life. And this is shocking
to put in perspective. But one hour a day on
your phone or social media, um, from the age of
(34:44):
13 to 80. However, I have a formula in the
back of my book that you can find the exact
amount of time you're spending on social media, but one
hour a day can come out to over three years
of your life spent on social media or your phone.
2 to 3 hours can come out to 6 to
8 years of your life, and four or more hours
can come out to over 11 years of our life.
(35:08):
So we have to ask ourselves, how is this affecting me?
How is it affecting my mental health, my relationship with God,
my relationships? And you know, when we get to the
end of our lives, we will have to give an
account before God for how we spent our time. And
we simply are so far removed from this embodied life
(35:29):
God created us to be. And going back to my
point is so terrifying is we can now die with
more memories of other people's lives. If we scold for
scrolled for three hours, we would see over 4000 visual
posts a day from the age of 20 to 80,
that comes out to over 80 million views, images, posts.
(35:53):
And the thing about seeing on like seeing photos and
videos is they're so much more strongly imprinted in our
minds than actual real moments. And for parents is you
can die with more memories of other people's kids. So
the spiritual ramifications, Chris, are so serious. But the great
news is it doesn't have to be this way and
(36:15):
we can live differently because we are not called to
conform to the patterns of this world, and we do
not have to conform to the social media circus. We
can live better lives.
S1 (36:27):
That's Allie Marie Smith. Social Media Reset is our featured
resource at Chris favorite divorce. When we come back, I
want you to hear from someone who did exactly what
Allie is talking about. It was kind of a forced
reset in his life, and you'll hear from him straight ahead.
This is Chris Fabry live online. Chris Fabry Live.com.
S5 (37:01):
This is, I think, a really important.
S1 (37:04):
Topic for us today. And we could we could have
these conversations all week long about the dangers of social media.
But the question is, what do you do? How do
how do you break out of the rut that you
may be in? Do you see yourself and you could
be defensive and say, well, I'm not addicted, I'm not addicted.
But then if you ask the other people in your life,
(37:24):
do you feel like I'm present with you all the time?
Do you feel you know? And what is that disconnection
that comes? That's why Allie Marie Smith wrote social media reset.
It's a 30 day guided journey and you can see
it at archive.org. Here's a fellow who went through double that.
(37:45):
Brad's in Indiana. Brad. Tell me what happened to you.
S8 (37:49):
Hi. How's it going? Um, I would say I had
an addiction to social media. I was all the time
checking my phone. Um, I always wanted to see what
was going on, and, um, I would even probably check
it more often than I needed to. Um, I would
take little fasts here and there from it. Like I
(38:12):
take a month off, say, I'm not going to get
on social media for a month. Um, but, uh, recently
I went on vacation, and when I came back after
I took all my pictures from vacation, um, I got
on my social media and my account was hacked, and
(38:32):
it was looking very unhopeful as in, I would not
be able to get back into my my Facebook account. And, um,
I tried everything and I was very down about it
because that was the only way that I would contact
several of my friends. Um, I think I had probably
(38:55):
600 people on there. And, you know, some of them
was close friends and some of them wasn't. And I
never had their phone number because I would just send
a message through messenger. security and um, so from for
about two months from April all the way till July,
I didn't have a Facebook and um, it was uh,
(39:20):
it was quite an adjustment. So I went from doing
a fast to now I'm not ever going to have
social media, but recently I got it back, so.
S1 (39:32):
Okay. So what what happened in that two month period
then when you couldn't have access? Um, what happened on
the inside? Did you feel like you were more calm, more,
more present with the people around you? What happened?
S8 (39:50):
Uh, yeah, I would say I was more, um, present
with the people because they'd all be looking at their phones,
whereas I'd be like, I can't really look at my
phone other than a text message I got from somebody. Um,
but they would be, you know, looking through all their
social media at break or, um, wherever we would be. And, uh, yeah.
(40:13):
So I was probably more present with the people, uh,
talking about what's going on during the day, and they
would know all the news of everything that's happened, and
I would be out of the loop of every thing
going on because I don't even watch TV. I just stream.
S1 (40:30):
Yes. Bingo. Right there. The missing out, are they other
people know the things that I don't know. And I
want to know what everybody knows. And so if you're connected,
if you're on social media, you see all those different
things or something that they're laughing at. This has happened
to me a lot. Ali, did you see the one
about the little kid and everybody's. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
(40:50):
I have no idea what you're what you're talking about.
So you feel on the outside looking in on those things.
So with all of that as a precursor then what
Brad said, Ali, what do you say?
S2 (41:05):
Yeah, well, a couple of things. First, I will say, um,
for men and women, uh, how they are affected by
social media can be really different. Um, so women are,
you know, wired a little more sensitively. But really, I
recommend that everyone who uses social media at least once,
like for a month or so, to really pull back
(41:27):
for at least 30 days because it's really going to
reset your brain's pathways. It's going to break any addiction.
It's going to make you feel calm, less anxious, um,
more present, and then at that break can help you,
you know, come back and use it more intentionally and wisely. Um,
and again, research shows like after week, so many people are,
(41:52):
you know, instantly happier, less anxious. And the other point is,
how much time of our lives are we going to
get back? Right? So, you know, even three hours, a
day for a month. We're going to get back 90
hours of our lives. And what can we do with
that time differently? And how can we invest that time
in other people and our gifts and in things that
(42:15):
that we enjoy? So it is kind of saying, um,
really yes to a lot of things and temporarily, temporarily.
And you can always, you know, go back to using it,
but in a healthier way.
S1 (42:26):
Yes. And and that's one of the things that you
suggested in the book. I saw that if you delete
the app from your phone, if that's how you use
social media, usually, and most people do, you delete the app,
you keep the log in information, or you ask a
friend or family member you trust to change your password
(42:47):
so that the way you know and you really have
to trust this other person so that they know how
to get back in so that you don't just, you know,
in a in a fit of wanting to see what's
going on, get logged back in there, right?
S2 (43:03):
Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we have to have grace
with ourselves and know that these platforms, Facebook, which is
now meta, intentionally designed these platforms to be addictive. We
get hits of dopamine from every notification, like the same response,
same same with gambling and drugs and and what's so interesting.
(43:24):
You know, they want to keep us on there as
long so that they profit. You know, they make over
$130 billion a year. And, you know, we think it's free,
but we are actually the product being sold because they
make over $56 per user a year off of our
time scrolling. So I say have grace with yourself. It
really is designed to be addiction. Um, to be addictive.
S1 (43:46):
How do you manage it then? If you go back
to it, you go back to social media and you
want to do it responsibly, responsibly. How do you manage that?
S2 (43:57):
Well, to be honest, it really is hard. It takes
a lot of discipline and self-control, but we can do
it because we know that God has given us that spirit.
And so, you know, taking those steps of having at
least a month, a month off every year. And then, um,
I have so many boundaries that people can implement. And
(44:18):
in the book I have over 15 boundaries. You can
set time limits, app limits, you can take dedicated days
or weekends off. You can unfollow or mute. You can
be really selective about who you follow. Only follow a
few accounts that make your life better. Um, you can
turn off all the notifications on your phone. Um, you
can have physical boundaries. Just keep your phone away from
(44:40):
you for part of the day. Also, get a landline.
I just got a landline. Um, and that can even be,
you know, an obstacle so you don't constantly have to
have your phone with you and really use it purposefully,
like I did. You can take the apps off your phone.
You can access them on a tablet device or on
your computer, um, and really show up for other people
(45:02):
to encourage them and really rather than consume them. So
there's so many amazing boundaries we can implement. So it
actually adds value to us. And, you know, then we
can happily, like, miss out on all the junk it
can bring.
S1 (45:14):
Yes. Well, and that's one of the things that I
love about the book, because every day, all 30 days
that you go through this, it's like you're walking right
beside of us and helping us. You know, if you're
feeling a little bit anxious today because of this, it's
perfectly fine. This is this is what it was designed
to do to make you feel this, to go back
(45:36):
to it. So it's very helpful. I also like the appendix,
where you list 75 things you can do instead of
scrolling on social media, and there are some, just read
a book under a tree. And don't forget your bug spray.
Have a picnic in the park. Pack lots of cheese
and chocolate. Uh, take a deep breath. Fill your lungs
with air. Say a prayer of gratitude. As you exhale,
(46:00):
move your body with joy and freedom. Volunteer for something.
Make something with your hands. And as you look at
this for yourself and then for the next generation, you
start to see, wow, there maybe there is a different
way to live. And if you go to the website,
you'll see the featured resource by Allie Murray Smith. Social
(46:22):
media reset a 30 day guided journey to unplug, reconnect
with God and reclaim your joy. Allie, it's a joy
to get to talk with you today. Thanks a lot
for the help. Come alongside us today.
S2 (46:36):
Thanks for having me, Chris.
S1 (46:38):
Again, Allie Marie Smith's Social Media Reset is our featured
resource at Chris Fabry Lives. Our program is a production
of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
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