Lost Among the Crowd - Socially Isolated

Both Christians and non Christians alike can feel lost among the crowd. As I look around at the isolation of this generation and the unnatural connection to "technology" that has replaced human interaction, I begin to see just how people actually isolate themselves and it saddens me. People have lost the capability to communicate with others in full, cohesive sentences and have become unable to hold eye contact for any length of time.

Find Your Balance

What prompted this post was an attempted interaction with someone who fell into that category of having an "unnatural" connection to technology which ultimately effected our interaction. I just stopped talking altogether because the person, who grew up in a time that technology wasn't everyone's focus, completely ignored me because the "device" that was beckoning their attention, was more important to them than being present in the moment. The scene was disturbing, not to mention rude. We were engaging in a conversation for approximately 5 minutes when the device started notifying them about an incoming text. I could immediately see a change in their demeanor, facial expressions, body language and their attention was clearly being directed elsewhere. All of the sudden, without thought or care, they picked up their device, began "communicating" with the person texting them and had absolutely no idea what I was saying, while trying to "act" as though they heard it all. This is going to sound very childish, I'm sure, but I knew they didn't hear me and wasn't paying attention because once I knew they were more entranced and meshed in the texting than they were being present in our conversation which began first, I decided to throw in something that should have had a RESPONSE! Something that had nothing to do with our initial conversation and something that was very out of place. Yes, I did it on purpose. And what followed, well, is the birth of this post. I sat there feeling "lost in the crowd" although I knew it wasn't me. What's happened to us as a people? I felt hurt and sad.

Texting. Instagram. FaceBook. Twitter. They all promote a short attention span, disconnection and isolation. I know many of you reading this will vehemently disagree and that is absolutely fine. In fact, you have the right to do so. However, how many times have you been speaking with someone when you got an incoming text or notification and you hurriedly grab your device and look to see if you should respond or want to respond? How many of you have been engaging in some function, amidst a crowd of people, when you receive texts, emails or whatever notification interrupts the activity and grab your phone without thought and look at it? Even if you don't respond, the mere fact of "disengaging" for even a few seconds to look at the device in the first place, disconnects you automatically with the crowd around you or the person you are having a conversation with. This is just as bad as responding in the middle of a conversation. Disengaging is disengaging, no matter how you view it. This is just another form of addiction. Plain and simple. The very nature of technology at its best and in its fullest form is to distract. Distraction has consequences. I should know. I was involved in an accident because the driver was "distracted" by one of those devices and while I was at a complete stop, the rear-ended me at full speed. It could have cost me my life and I thank Jesus daily that my injuries weren't as bad as they could have been!

The digital communications keep many endlessly distracted which ultimately gives the user a kind of "ADD" if you will. Spiritually as well. The majority of digital users don't keep their use under control. In fact, they find it almost impossible to do so! It distracts many from the important issues of our daily lives more and more, in addition to learning the valuable skills to deal with those issues. It doesn't promote critical thinking nor learning to analyze data. There are so many reasons for my concern in this generation of technology but interactions or the lack thereof, is high on the list of the top 5! Everyone needs to have communication skills. Everyone needs to be able to engage appropriately. Everyone needs to be able to hold eye contact for more than a second. Everyone needs to be able to give and receive in those communicative interactions. This digital age of advanced technology also distracts the masses from the utmost importance of focusing on Jesus Christ. This social media and digital age is, and has become, a true form of idolatry. For those who aren't aware, God takes idol worship very serious and He makes it known clearly throughout His Word that it is forbidden. Here are just a few of those Scriptures:
Psalm 97:7, "Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, Who boast of idols. Worship Him, all you gods."
Exodus 20:3-4, "“You shall have no other gods before Me. v4) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image - any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;"
1 Peter 4:3, "For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries."
1 Corinthians 10:14, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."

In all the social forms of communication, for a lack of a better word, people put its importance above our Lord and Savior! In Genesis 31:19 we find the first place idolatry was alluded to when Rachel stole her father's teraphim. The teraphim were the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban's progenitors "on the other side of the river in old time" Joshua 24:2. The first and second commandments are directed against idolatry of EVERY form. In the New Testament, the term idolatry is used to designate covetousness. These references are found in Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; Colossians 3:5; and Ephesians 5:5. Idolatry has a broad range, now doesn't it?! So much so that God emphasizes it's destructive ways more than once!

1 Peter 2:12, "having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation."

I bring up that passage specifically because there are many, many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, using the media formats that dishonors God. People say things that are clearly hurtful and downright mean because they hide behind a screen that tends to give them a false sense of "bravado." People also post pictures that are less than honorable. The list goes on. Let me first say that I do not, will not, nor have I ever, had a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Myspace, Tumblr, Reddit, or any other format deemed, and categorized under, Social ME-dia. First of all, I'm not a follower. I never have been. I remember as a young, impressionable girl, my mother would always tell us girls that it was better to LEAD than to follow and I took that to heart. Literally. I was never the one to follow all the fads, the newest crazes or the next fleeting fancy. Then again, I'm one of those people who listens to the WORDS that someone CHOOSES to speak and takes them at face value!!!  Always! Anyway, aside from that, the main reason was that I saw quite a bit of spiritual danger in it when MySpace first hit the ground and began to take off. In combination with "chat rooms" and instant messengers, well, I could see where this would and COULD take a society. It was the GATEWAY to the drug of this decade for certain. The IDEA intrigued me at first. A way of expression, a way of artistic flair, and maybe even a way to connect with like-minded individuals. But that's all it was for me. Intrigue. It was almost like the "forbidden fruit" syndrome. Only I didn't take the bite of the deadly fruit. Why? I know myself. That's why. That's the simple answer. This blog is the closest thing to anything I've done on social media and this was solely directed and led by God Almighty. I finally obeyed. And to be clear, I was even a little skeptical doing this until I realized what impact being a vessel, a willing vessel, of Jesus could be for someone who happened upon the truths passed on from the Lord God. The Lord spoke it clearly and so I obliged.....and obeyed.

Are YOU Distracted?

Aside from all of the downfalls that come with the "addictions" to the social media formats, one of the costliest is becoming socially isolated and getting lost in the crowd. We were designed to interact with eachother. To communicate with eachother, hence our ability to SPEAK and form thoughts and ideas. We were designed to collaborate. To share. To guide. To LISTEN. God designed us to be a vessel to carry His Light into the darkest of places. If distractions of the technological devices interfere with the interactions of humans, it will inevitably effect the spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ too! People carry tablets, laptops, IPhones, Smartphones, and smart watches with them everywhere they go. People can't even enjoy an outing together without some form of "distraction." Technology is becoming so advanced that it's wearable. That poses another level of intrusive forms of distractions. All these distractions can, and does, lead to dispersed consciousness. There are things in the spiritual life that we need to be reminded of every six minutes, as one professor noted, "recollected" is the old word for this. You see, we live in the presence of God, we live intentionally, and we live out of a calm center, spiritually.

Digital distractions ultimately challenge all this, leading to a loss in worldview. Digital information is actually broken down into a massive sequence of zeros and ones, which is literally a metaphor of the danger. By atomization of this information, where every single part of life gets broken down and processed in bits and bytes, just means it becomes harder and harder to see exactly how things are connected to wholes of everything, how things are integrated, how one particular insight is connected to God’s amazingly created and designed world. So, instead, we then experience the world as simply fragment. To me, that's alarming! Fragments are but a small grain of sand in the whole of things, including conversing with someone! It becomes increasingly difficult to operate from a central worldview that orients our lives to everything else.

While losing a worldview through advanced technology, we also inevitably lose our filters. I think Christians mean well when they voice their "faith" and "opinions" and "engage" on Facebook, or other platforms of choice. Intentions are fine from the onset but sooner than later, someone along the way will have something negative to say, or want to bait you into a debate, or even try to pull you into something that isn't even worth the time it took to read it. Therein lies another idol....anger. Most of the time you will end up angry or bitter or resentful by the time you're done "posting" something, debating something, arguing about something until you and the rest of the "eyes" are blue in the face and red in the eyes. But while doing so, I also believe Christians tend to do more harm than good because it soon becomes too easy to get into a "battle" with other brothers and sisters in Christ but also with the non-believers who may be challenging something that was said or posted or liked. Under the veil of "taking a stand" for Christian values, for the faith and for the love of Jesus, I fear we are letting loose all kinds of dishonoring, uncharitable, un-Christ-like and argumentative speech. Our filters become less and less and speech becomes more and more like the world being debated or challenged. Dangerous slope in my opinion. Some people believe by "engaging" hundreds of "followers" or "friends" has some kind of true effect on their lives and "falsely" "feel" it's OK to speak unfiltered. It's a disembodiment of sorts. We live in the loneliest times. People are depressed more and anxiety laden. Our closest relationships cannot flourish only in disembodied, remote connections. Social isolated.

I am not socially connected as mentioned above because I could easily fall victim to the predatory call of adoration, idolatry and self-centeredness. I fought the urge many years ago when social media stepped in the spotlight and to this day, I am thankful because it doesn't consume me. It can't consume me. Why? Because I can't be consume by something I'm not part of. I have a smart phone and I text. I never pick up my phone while I'm with someone engaging in a conversation. I don't pick up my phone or text or even READ a text if I'm having dinner with a friend. My attention is given to them. Fully. That is rate these days but i find it one of the most important things in this world right now to possess.....strong human interaction. I see way too many people lost in the crowd because their heads are buried in their device of choice. They are missing a smile, a nod, a laugh. They are missing giving that same smile, nod or laugh back to someone who might just desperately need it to survive just one more day.

1 John 2:16, "For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world." That’s the heart of idolatry, things that the self lusts after. Lust is a strong desire. It’s giving in to things that feed our own fleshly desires instead of letting God align our desires with His. In the case of the golden calf, the Israelites gave into self-lust for security. Instead of trusting in God for their security, they decided to trust their security to a non-living statue that their eyes could see. Idolatry often times comes from a desire to control our own circumstances. The problem with idolatry, however, is that it really isn't in our control.  No matter how much we want to think that our "idol" allows us some amount of control over our life, when it becomes an idol (and in may cases, it does), it’s no longer under our control. It’s controlling US. When anything is in control of US, then it's an idol.

I found something written by Tim Challies that I would like to share on this topic. He said,
"[Technology] certainly delivers on its promise, allowing us to live longer and cleaner and healthier and more comfortable lives. But because it is so effective in meeting our needs, it can easily begin to replace the one true God. We begin to think that it is the doctor or surgeon who heals us rather than the God who gives men wisdom to understand the inner workings of the human body. We begin to think that it is the mobile phone company that provides us with the blessing of communication rather than God’s grace enabling families to stay in touch over long distances. We easily assume that technology has the power to grant us the benefits we desire, and we forget the Author of technology and the true purpose of our technologies—bringing glory to him. Technology becomes an idol when we start to believe that humanity’s hope, humanity’s future, will be found in more and better technology. It becomes an idol when we place greater hope in technology than in God and when we measure human progress, not by the state of our hearts, but by new innovations in technology…We can make an idol of technology as we flip through the weekly advertisements, looking for something, anything, that will make our lives just a little bit better and fill the void in our hearts."

Technology might have started out with good intentions for advancement, for growth, for speed in communications. However, just like everything else, Satan comes in and changes the course. It's not the application, it's the user. This becomes a vicious cycle because there is a dopamine hit with each "like" "thumbs up" "comment" etc., that keeps everyone coming back for more. People get depressed if someone "unsubscribes" to them or hits the "dislike" button. They don't feel relevant. They don't feel liked. In all actuality, they don't even know the majority of the people they are "interacting" with in the first place. It becomes an addiction to see how many thumbs up they get, how many followers, etc., and that plays into the success of social media while playing into the social isolation because they are not truly interacting with people in "real time." There are consequences for bad choices in life, but unfortunately the times we live in presently, are moving away from consequences and this feeds into the inability to make better choices. Addictions are real and based on someone "numbing" themselves or trying to "fill a void." Social media and technology feeds this need. As with addictions, the addicted can't see the price they are paying nor can they see it as an addiction.

There is a sad amount of lonely, disconnected people in this world. This is not how God designed His people to live! Let's really think about this for a moment. A tremendous amount of one's life moved from other real life spaces into one tool: maps, books, newspapers, calendars, music, notes, lists, alarms, reminders, photos, banking, files, recordings, calls, calculations, weather forecasts, and even one's Bible. Friendships too because there's texting, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Nearly all aspects of someone's life is, and can be, somehow tied in with or managed through one single item of metal and glass in their pocket. Their "life" is obtained from ONE device!!! Can you see where the problem lies!?! With so much of someone's life tied up in their constant connectivity at their fingertips, they can easily start to expect that everything always involves their phone. If someone isn’t looking at their phone, they can easily feel like they weren’t seeing anything. If they aren’t touching their phones, they can assume, and FEEL, like they aren’t living. Now do you see? Many of you fear being disconnected from your phones (or whatever technological device you can think of). People relish and crave constant connectivity. Instinctively, society "knows" this is an issue but the "drug" numbs the senses preventing good choices from being made. Research is starting to paint a very startling picture of our societal problem. A study in Psychological Reports: Disability and Trauma seems to imply that social media withdrawal closely resembles that of a drug addict crashing back down to earth. It appears people respond more quickly to feedback from Facebook, etc., than to traffic signs!

And you may have heard that being connected all the time is bad for our sleep, too much blue light from our phones before bed can disrupt our sleep, according to Brian Zoltowski of Southern Methodist University, as reported by Scientific American. And the cumulative effect of poor sleep is terrible for our health. Depression, anxiety, physical stresses, unhealthy thought processes, just to name a few. Psychologically, there are many people in this generation that, when separated from their phones, "experience a lessening of 'self' and a negative physiological state," according to Russell Clayton of the University of Missouri who co-authored "The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology" in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. This is staggering! This altered psychological state predicates the disconnection in society and the sense of feeling lost in a sea of people. Depression and lack of self-worth in a social media driven society is a very sad outcome of isolation. I've known of people who have not been invited to a social event because they didn't have a facebook account! So instead of picking up the phone to invite them or even sending a text, they just overlooked the person and thought that was OK! It's not. People are fragile creatures. Feelings get hurt. Self-esteem gets crushed. This is a problem. If lack of access to technology or specific social media outlets, excludes people from their community, this should raise warning flags!

Technology can be a good thing and can assist in daily lives. however, this shouldn't be confused with replacing real time interactions, real time relationships and real time worship with the very ONE that created us for that purpose! It's not necessarily evil to use it as long as it doesn't become your idol. It's got to be tethered and managed and broken from in order to remain connected in reality. In God's good providence, He has enabled men and women to develop technology that can be used to help us grow spiritually, serve others, be productive in good works, and, in many other ways, just make life a whole lot easier. Yet, because of our own sin nature and our residence in a fallen world where man’s bent is to misuse and abuse God’s good gifts, we really must give careful thought to these clever devices. We need to pay attention to how we use our smartphones and tablets because this technology has become utterly pervasive in our lives. It's likely that nearly every person reading this post happens to be in possession of a smartphone or a tablet, or both. It's no longer possible to avoid thinking about how we, as Christians, should use this kind of technology because it's now firmly embedded in our lives, and it’s here to stay. With technology, comes the greater propensity to sin easier, to be lulled into places we wouldn't normally wander, cause distractions from our responsibilities, open doors to pornography, and drown us in frivolous entertainment. For every good thing, there are ten-fold negatives. We must choose carefully and discipline ourselves as a society and as Christians, on the use or overuse, of the technology provided to us.

Satan is prowling around looking to devour our children, looking to devour the distracted, looking to devour the weak and broken, so we must be watchful! 1 Pet 5:8, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." And it is impossible to be watching for Satan when we are watching replays of last night's game or scrolling through Facebook for an hour or watching NetFlix for hours. It's impossible to watch for the wiles of the enemy who is on high alert seeking that very moment when he can slither in and devour someone at their weakest moment. Sleep deprivation plays into Satan's hand as well! Keep that in mind when you go to bed at night and spend an hour or more with your phone in the dark when you should be talking to the Almighty and resting your mind and body and spirit! Last year there was a study showing ADHD is up 800 percent, depression is up 70 percent and much of that was caused by over stimulation through the technology and information highway! That, too, is staggering!

Let's try to connect to people the way that Jesus connects to us and to communicate with others face to face. We need to balance our life out with all the demands including how social media, phones, tablets etc., are being uses. Don't miss those moments to influence another's life by a smile, by lending an ear, by speaking Truth to them in their darkest hour. Don't remain distracted in this world of disconnect! There are many lonely and depressed people out there who need you, who need that smile, who need that "real" hug! It can, and WILL, change a life! And that, my dear readers, are what we are created to do! Spread His light, love and joy to those who cross our path!

I will leave you with some scriptures for you to balance your life out! One of my favorite scriptures about balance and time is found in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, "To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 2) A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; 3) A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; 4) A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; 6) A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; 7) A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; 8) A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace."

2 Peter 3:17, "You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;"

Ephesians 5:15, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,"

Proverbs 11:1, "Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight."

Isaiah 40:12, "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance And the hills in a pair of scales?"

God wants us to balance our lives so think about those words! And remember, there are people in your everyday interactions that NEED your FULL attention, whether you know it or not!! Please don't miss that opportunity! Don't let them feel lost in the crowd when you're standing right in front of them!!

May God bless each of you in His Perfect Will! May you find His peace and love and be warm in His arms! May you seek Jesus Christ for your personal Savior because it's never too late to start your relationship with Him! He accepts you as you are, where you are and who you are because He will change you, grow you, heal you, love you and regenerate you!



best religion blogs