Fighting for Healthy Friendship in the Social Media Age

Are you old enough to remember when “the Facebook” came out? I was a freshman in college when I received that initial email invite and quickly saw the appeal. Before Facebook, I would have had to make several phone calls or send dozens of texts to figure out what all my high school friends were up to. And I didn’t have time for that. But Facebook listed all those updates in one seamless news feed where I could get my fix of what’s going on with my friends in just a few minutes between classes. It was a new world. Now, I could make new friends and keep up with the old. A win-win, right?

But now, I’m not so sure. As we lived with nearly a decade and a half of social media, are our friendships better off? Have we gained more than we’ve lost? While I see nothing wrong with social media (I love watching my friends’ kids grow up via Instagram!), the advent of this technology forces us to work harder forming healthy habits in friendship.

Let me explain what I mean. If we aren’t careful, we will stretch ourselves too thin, trying to have 100 deep friendships when we are only capable of a few. If we aren’t careful, we’ll end up with many long-distance friendships but no one physically present in our day to day lives to be there for us. If we aren’t careful, we may lose the ability to enjoy and cultivate seasonal friendships and begin demanding that every friendship be a forever one.

So what wisdom does the Bible offer as we seek to build healthy, stable, and satisfying friendships in the age of social media? While there’s much to say, I see three principles informing this area of my life: embrace your limits, have an eternal perspective, and remember your mission.

Embrace Your Limits

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. — Proverbs 18:24

Contrary to the message our social media accounts preach, it is not possible to have 100s of friends. We just don’t have the capacity. We are limited people with a limited about of relational bandwidth. Even Jesus accepted this human limitation in His time on earth, having only twelve apostles and within that only three — Peter, James, and John — who He regularly brought in to His most intimate moments.

What makes us think we can manage more than that?

Before all this technology, most people were forced to embrace the limits that jobs, moves, and kids placed on them. The challenge now is that we are no longer forced into limitation, we must choose to limit ourselves. And that’s far more difficult. It takes a lot of self-control and intentionality to build local friendships after you move rather than just keep up with your friends back home via facetime. But if we don’t make these decisions, we’ll miss the real joys and benefits that flesh-and-blood friendships have for us.

Have an Eternal Perspective 

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. — Colossians 3:2

Unlike the world around us, we don’t have to live like this life is all there is. Jesus has purchased for us a reality of unending fellowship with Himself and with one another. The future of our friendships with all who trust in Christ are secure! There is no more FOMO when you keep eternity in mind.

Considering eternity has freed me to allow for seasonal friendships. I have friends from high school and college that are precious friends, people who I dearly love! But I no longer keep up with them because I can’t, I don’t have the capacity right now. But I know one day, because of our mutual faith in Jesus, we will be able to sit across the table from one another in the new heavens and new earth and catch up on all we missed in this life! I have eternity with those friends! So even if it is goodbye for now, I know I’m not really losing anything.

Remember Your Mission

We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. — 1 Corinthians 5:20

Social media can quickly convince you that keeping up with everyone is priority number one. It can create anxiety in us when we aren’t doing a good job managing our many relationships in person and online. But is this our goal in life? To keep up with our social networks? No way! As Christians, we have something so much bigger to live for!

We are ambassadors for Christ, carrying the hope of the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

Please don’t misunderstand me here, I think friendships are of paramount importance! But when we try to have too many friends, we end up running around from one coffee date to another and can lose the ability to see the lonely neighbor in the house next door or the struggling single mom at the grocery store. And they may be in desperate need of the hope that we have.

So as you interact with your many online and in person connections, keep these truths in mind. Humbly embrace the limitations in your life and be content with fewer friends. Choose to remain uninformed about all those online friends every now and then so that you have space to notice the people God has placed right in front of you. Set your mind on eternity and remember you have a mission, and it’s something so much bigger than socializing. You are an ambassador carrying the great news that there is a good God who has befriended sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of His son, Jesus! Living for this will not take away from our friendships but will infuse them with more meaning and joy than we thought possible!

Written for Faith.Full by Kelly Needham, author of Friend-ish.

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