Social Media: Unveiling the Modern Idols in Our Digital Age
Worshiping American Gods. Whom Do You Serve?
Introduction: The Battle for Belief in a Modern World
In Neil Gaimon’s novel American Gods, there are the old gods like Odin and Anansi and the new gods of television and cars. A war is brewing as they vie for control of the one thing they all need—our belief.
Pagan gods need belief to live, like we need food and water. The Christian God doesn’t need believers, of course, but other gods do, and contrary to what you might think, they’re very much real.
Every idol feeds on human ritual and sacrifice and that’s what makes them strong. No one makes blót sacrifices to Odin or burns criminals in a wicker man anymore, but as belief in old gods dies, new gods rise to take their place. Where once we had gods of thunder, agriculture, and fertility, now we have a pantheon of technocratic gods.
The Rise of New Gods: From Odin to Social Media
America is in a spiritual crisis. We live in a disinformation age that replaces community with politics, family with followers, and faith with technology. We’re saturated with smartphones that think so we don’t have to and social media that isolates us. We consume empty calories for our brains, only for our souls to be left unfulfilled.
You need to ask yourself: who’s your god? Whom do you serve? Is it the god of Facebook? Is it the god of Android? Are you pulling out your phone and serving them with every bedtime ritual? Are you sending up likes and upvotes like incense every time you go to the bathroom?
The Spiritual Crisis in America: Technology as the New Religion
Social media isn’t inherently pagan. The thunder and the sun aren’t pagan. Their worship in the forms of Taranis and Apollo, however, is. How we use social media matters. Social media use is linked to behavioral problems, obesity, anxiety, and addiction in children, depression, and political polarization. However, social media can also be a valuable tool. Use it wisely—and with caution. Reflect and ask, do you spend more time on social media than you do in prayer or talking to your spouse?
Who is being served by your actions?
When social media distracts us from our vocations, it becomes another small god fighting for our attention. Like cigarettes, which take an already addictive substance and packages it into an easy-to-consume form that keeps you constantly reaching for the next hit, social media is designed to keep you addicted. It’s the jealous god of modern paganism vying for your belief.
Who’s Your God? Reflecting on Modern Idolatry
Social media conditions us to salivate like dogs at the sound of the notification bell. It trickle-feeds us until our dopamine-addled brains crave the screen. However, while dopamine may be the brain’s pathway to pleasure, it isn’t a pathway to joy. Controversy creates clicks, and clicks make money. Like the Matrix, it doesn’t work if everyone is happy, so it’s designed to make you miserable instead. Platforms like Twitter need their user base to be unhappy in order to make the most profit. Rage clicks light up the brain, but they darken the soul and leave us drained. Like an addict, after the high, the pleasure is fleeting, and it leaves us empty. And that’s a good thing—for the gods—because it means the parishioners will always be back.
The Dark Side of Social Media: Addiction, Isolation, and Division
In Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper argues that the purpose of leisure is contemplation. Is there anything less contemplative than the constant noise of Twitter and TikTok? True leisure substitutes hectic amusement with silence and insight. It’s a rejection of the restlessness of modern media and an acceptance of intellectual and spiritual peace. In contrast, social media takes the hyper-political, the toxicity, the trolls, and brings it to our living rooms, our bedrooms, and our bathrooms. It turns the noise in our lives up to eleven, all the time, without rest.
Controversy Creates Clicks: The Profit-Driven Design of Social Media
I used to be chained to my phone. I set limits, I did social media fasts, and it worked—for a time. But I always fell back into old habits. Then, a fellow Christian, a man whom I’d respected for years, called me vile names on Facebook. It’s the kind of vitriol we’ve all seen casually flung around on the internet.
In the course of my life, I’ve been called all sorts of nasty things. What was different was who it was coming from. This was someone I looked up to. Over the years, I saw how social media affected this man. I saw how his content had degenerated from intelligent discourse to petty name-calling. It wasn’t until I became a target myself that things hit home. Here was an intelligent, generous, sincere Christian reduced by social media to a dog barking at strangers. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, he was a man who went on grumbling so long that he risked becoming nothing more than a grumble and no longer a man at all. That horrified me.
Breaking Free: A Personal Journey Away from Social Media
I like to think that I never resorted to that kind of behavior. Still, the fact is that social media rewards toxicity and division, and it takes constant, deliberate effort to resist it.
So, why bother? Why spend my time and mental capital resisting social media’s seduction when that energy would be better spent on my profession, my family, and my spiritual life? Why constantly struggle to keep the cancer from metastasizing when I could just cut it out? I deleted my Facebook account that same day. That was a few years ago, and I’ve never once regretted that decision.
Conclusion: Whom Do You Serve? Reclaiming Your Time and Soul
So, the next time you pull out your phone, reflect and ask yourself: whom do you serve? In a world where modern idols vie for your attention, it’s crucial to reclaim your time and focus on what truly matters—your faith, your family, and your own well-being. By consciously choosing to step away from social media distractions, you can create space for deeper connections, spiritual growth, and a more fulfilling life.
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