Social media is one of the dominant influences on culture today, embraced by anybody looking for a voice in the world. Religion publishers are weighing in on the many debated that have sprung up around the impact of social media with books that offer a spiritual footing for healthier online social lives.
Sadie Robertson Huff, who first rose to fame on A&E’s Duck Dynasty and has over five million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, is acknowledging her own influential presence online and asking readers Who Are You Following? Pursuing Jesus in a Social Media Obsessed World (Thomas Nelson, out now). Huff writes in the book: “I want to see more… positive, encouraging messaging spring up. That’s why I’m writing this book. This is me doing what I can to help us all wake up to the issues caused by our obsession with our screens—interactions that often provide the wrong answers to questions we don’t even know we’re asking.”
The Whoah, That’s Good podcaster draws on Scripture, research from the Pew Center and others related to time spent on social media and online abusive behavior, and personal stories, with the intention of helping readers form a plan of action as well as clear reasons for using social media that is in line with the teachings of Jesus, “the ultimate influencer,” according to the publisher.
Digging deeper into the social, emotional, and mental effects of social media, Chris Martin’s Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media (B&H, out now) explores the dominant role the “social internet” plays in the lives of users. Martin—a content marketing editor and social media, marketing and communications consultant—demonstrates how social media impacts users in hidden ways, and how readers can “push back against the hold the internet has on your mind and your heart,” according to the publisher.
Similarly, Silicon Valley-based pastor Jay Kim is following up on his book Analog Church with Analog Christian: Cultivating Contentment, Resilience, and Wisdom in the Digital Age (IVP, July 26), which examines how values of the digital age affect followers of Jesus. In it, Kim argues that “scrolling and swiping” is leading to impatience, comparison, outrage, and more in an effort to warn readers of the resulting damage to one’s soul, according to the publisher.
There is also help for parents who are navigating their children’s use of social media and technology. Molly DeFrank, a mother of six who pulled the tech plug on her irritable and inattentive kids for two weeks, shares her story in Digital DeTox: The Two-Week Tech Reset for Kids by (Bethany, April 19). What began as an experiment results in improved moods and increased creativity in DeFrank’s household. Acknowledging an attachment to what she calls an electronic babysitter, the book lays out a 14-day plan for setting boundaries for screen time and provides tips for continuing device restrictions well beyond two weeks.
“Parents come at this topic of detox with all sorts of objections on why this would never work for their families,” Bethany’s acquisitions editor, Jennifer Dukes Lee, tells PW. “Molly tackles every single one. She doesn’t miss a thing.”
And finally, readers looking for an academic exploration of our virtual realities will find it in Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan’s Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age (Fortress, March 29) by Image journal's culture editor Nick Ripatrazone. In the 1960s, literary theorist Marshall McLuhan foretold blessings and sins that would stem from an “electric world.” Now, Ripatrazone looks at that vision through the lens of McLuhan’s Catholic faith, while also offering a religious history of mass communication, including the Gutenberg Bible, the novels of James Joyce, and television. For McLuhan, God was everywhere, including in mediums, and he envisioned the electronic world as a place for potential spiritual exchange, Ripatrazone writes.