Brett Kunkle / The effects of Technology and Screens on an emerging culture

wineries this is live with Ryan Reese call now 180 date 564 61 73 or post your questions using the hashtag live Brian Reese on his Instagram Twitter or Facebook what up family I'm excited to be doing another show this Saturday night hanging out with all you guys whether you're driving or you're tuning in to the live webcast at Ryan - Reese comm I would suggest that you stay tuned because tonight I've been waiting for this interview for months I have a Brett Conkle in studio he's the founder of bavin and I seen him at a conference I don't know how many months ago was that it was last September I think it's been that long it's taken us a while to connect so this is good so I was at this youth conference over here at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and I went to this room and it was this it was it was um the whole thing was basically on technology and the effects it's having screens of technology that's having on this generation and I you know that's something I'm very interested in because obviously I had two high schools and I'm up to tune with all the statistics and we know that anxiety and depression I always talk about this stuff on the radio show because there are a lot of students that do tuned in from the high schools that we're going to in the middle schools and then also this is the shows also synthetic race syndicated across the United States and we have a lot of parents also that listen so it's it's it's a mixed crowd but yes I mean if Time magazine keeps rent and raving about depression and suicide and Technology is just at an all-time high that means we have a big problems and this is why I keep talking about it but the reason why I wanted you to come in is cuz you deal with this this is what you study this is what you do why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about your company why you found it in a little background on what you do yeah well I actually grew up in the church and just had such a good experience growing up in the church being part of really good churches a really good youth ministry actually became a student leader in my youth ministry when I was a high school student and thought I'm gonna go into full-time ministry I'm gonna be a youth pastor you know when I graduate College and then I go off to college my freshman year and I went to a local junior college here in Southern California for the first two years and I took a philosophy 101 class where I had a professor right who's the PhD he's the smart guy and for that whole semester of philosophy 101 he just dismantled my faith really just he wrecked me and he would challenge Christianity in class and then and he was cool about it he like look at me and say hey Brett we know you're Christian so like how would you answer this this difficult challenger question and I would sit there and I'd be like dr. Lane I I have nothing to say but what I would do as I turnt going to his his office afterwards to trying to debate him because I knew what he was saying was it was serious stuff if he was if he was kind of destroying Christianity and I had no response right well then I'm thinking maybe maybe I gotta I gotta really reconsider this maybe it maybe walk away from it if it's not true right so that whole thing sent me on this serious episode of doubt where I was doubting my faith in and then going and saying hey all right can these questions to be answered I mean is is the Bible historic historic ly reliable that means this do miracles really happen did Jesus really rise from the dead 2,000 years ago does God even exist and and I just discovered that there are so many good answers to those kind of questions and then it opened up this larger world of really using my mind when it comes to my faith like bringing the heart and the head together knowing what I believe and why I believe it and what that did for me was it took that doubt that I had and it turned it into confidence that this stuff is really true that Jesus is really risen from the dead and that he is transforming lives and and so that was kind of my story so that I went in and became a youth pastor work before you talk about that part there are tons of students that go to college that get dismantled oh yeah I mean it that's just like I mean I've heard so many stories they go full-on Christians and then they lose their faith yeah they get dismantled and they there's nobody to help them they never find any answers they don't discover some of the tools that we have things like apologetics which is just giving reasons for why we put our hope in this stuff and and they think well that's just blind irrational faith I guess because there's no answers these challenges and they walk away because God has made us as rational beings like we've got to make sense of the world right if something doesn't make sense then we usually just discard it and in the same way when young people who go off to college don't have those answers for those challenges that they're going to get and not only are they getting the intellectual challenges they're getting the moral challenges right so they're seeing then other alternative lifestyles or they're seeing the hook-up culture they're seeing casual sex and people living that out so then there's temptation and I've combined with their faith getting smashed intellectually and they're out they bounce and and what they don't realize is that we have solid answers and in doubt actually can be a tool that God uses to build your faith so yeah we we've got to do a better job of helping young people explore those questions give them given the space to ask whatever question they want like no question is off limits I tell that to my own kids I got five kids and wow whatever question you want that's right that's amazing so then from there you went to uh you went to become a youth pastor yeah because got into youth ministry and started working with junior highers high schoolers college students for 11 years and then and then really wanted to figure out how I could even more effectively equip young people to know what they believe and why they believe it and to think more carefully about how if Christianity is true if Jesus is risen if if if the Bible is the authority it's God's Word then how does it apply to every single area of my life not just like my quote/unquote relationship with Jesus or my quote/unquote faith or my personal private you know kind of box over here but how does it actually relate to things like my my studies at school so when I study history like what does Christianity have to say about that when I study psychology what does Christianity have to say about when I study business what are the insight how does it how if all truth is God's truth then a Christianity will be relevant to every single area of my life and that's what kind of that process did was opening me up to this like thoughtful deep faith in Christ and I just began to see all of reality through my Christian worldview through the truth of Christianity and so you know this like some of the stuff that we're gonna talk about tonight social media technology screens is is there does Jesus have something to say about this does does common sense have something to say about this is this reality you know how does reality inform us on this you know so how does Christianity relate to every single area of our lives and so that's kind of what I want to do and I got involved with a ministry called stand a reason for 14 years and then last fall we started maven which is we wanted to focus just directly on students junior high high school college students just the next generation and then also the people who are training them parents and youth leaders and pastors so what do you guys do exactly like I mean yeah you're pouring into these high school students what does that look like yeah so we we just launched in September so we're brand new where can people find you online yeah so our website is maven truth com and right now it's our initial website we've got some good friends that are building us a new website as we speak we're hoping to launch that in the next two to three weeks I got a phone call on Monday about kind of last details and and what we want to do one of the things we want to do is provide virtual training online resource sick that's a videos podcasts even some student podcasts I'm talking to students who are now listening more and more to podcasts yeah short videos are articles all kinds of online training for students and getting the think carefully about you know whether or not the stuff is even true and and then live events so that's speaking I do a ton of speaking but also we do conferences for students and we're doing those around the country and we also do parent conferences as well and then lastly we have our third strategy is what we call immersive experiences and these are pretty radical trips these these are trips where we take like a youth group or we work with a Christian school but we work with a group of Christians who really want to explore and know what they believe and why they believe it and so we study worldview we study culture we study apologetics and we do training and then we go we have two trips right now one is to Berkeley California and Berkeley's you know a radical place and what we do is we train students we go to Berkeley and then we create opportunities for them to talk to people who don't believe what we believe so I've got some good atheists buddies up there I bring them out and they challenge these Christian students too and they'll kind of give their atheist arguments and then we'll let the students dialogue and debate and it's civil and it's friendly but then it really challenges students and then afterwards we just kind of debrief and like okay what do you think about that and what we're the flaws in the argument what we're you know what were the things you had trouble answering and we help them see that Christianity can stand up to all kinds of questioning even from the most hardcore atheist and then we've owned a Berkeley campus and we talked to Burke Lee students and students could share share the gospel to get to share the truth they get to have really thoughtful conversations we also do a second trip to Salt Lake City Utah where we we train students to know what they believe what Scripture teaches theology and doctrine these great truths that tell us about God and about Christ and what he's done for us and we study those things and then we go to Utah and we talk to Mormons go to downtown Salt Lake visit the temple talk to the missionaries go to BYU go talk to college students there and basic it's just getting the stuff out of like behind the four walls of the church and into real life that's amazing so we we do those trips in those two locations and then we're building out two new trips one on the east go actually both on the East Coast one and hopefully in North Carolina and then one in the Atlanta area you know it's interesting because you could talk to I got some different friends are involved with different religions and they know so much but it seems like there's a very laksa Daisy vibe in Christianity where you don't care - they don't know their their Bibles yeah they what we know about young people and and this is it cuts across religions when you look at some studies like Christian Smith was a sociologist did a major study on this but what he basically found is that American teenagers when it comes to their religion are completely inarticulate like they can't explain to you basically anything and it's really bad in the church like with Christian kids you ask them about Jesus and maybe they get a couple cliches out Oh Jesus died on the cross for my sins okay well what does that mean like I mean there's a little bit more to that right right uh and they don't they don't they don't know you ask them hey lists for me just list for me you don't ever have to define it but just list for me the attributes of God and when I do this with high school students Christian high school since it they'll list maybe five or six and then they're like you know beating their brain to think okay well what other ones are there and they only get they only can get five or six or seven you know attributes attributes are just characteristics of who God is and if you look at any like just basic theology book there's gonna be twenty to twenty five so their knowledge of God is so little no wonder so many Christian young people are not passionate about their faith because they don't there's nothing to it I mean if you think about it here's an analogy if I said if you said hey Brett tell me about your wife right it's like oh yeah my wife well my wife is she's got brown hair she's five six she's got two eyeballs you know you're like no no don't really tell me about your wife and I said that's about all I got what would you conclude about my relationship with her you'd be like there's not much relation there or it's really it's really shallow and that sadly is where a lot of our young people are at but why do you think what's what's what's the deal are they just like now getting taller they just like disconnected what what's up with them thank you God that's that that's a big big quite I think there's multiple reasons I think part of it has to go back to you you can study like the history of philosophy for the last 300 years and see how that's influenced how Western civilization and these philosophical ideas that started in the Academy in the ivory tower trickle down into our culture there's I think there's my bad ideas and one of the bad ideas is that there's this division of truth there's the subjective private truth and the objective public facts right and so the things that are objective truths that are facts that have to do with knowledge well that's science and that's law and that's business and that you know these public things private stuff private truths your personal private truth well that's that's religion and that's morality and so those are you can have your own private true.this what the world says is a culture says you can have your own private truth just don't don't bring it out of that private level right and and so there's been this division between knowledge and faith like okay faith has nothing to do with knowledge according to our culture and according to most Christians that we bought that like yeah okay it's really about me and my personal relationship with Jesus and how Jesus really makes me feel at the end of the day and it's become so feeling oriented and so anti-intellectual so anti rational and the true vision of Christianity is that it's it's an it's a knowledge I mean the New Testament actually talks more about knowledge than it does about faith there's a huge emphasis on knowledge in fact there's a huge emphasis on evidence and fact Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15 he's like if Jesus did not rise from the dead like if this is not true he says your faith is worthless he's like you should be pitied because you believe in something that's not true and what Paul does is he takes our faith and he attaches it to fact and if this is not historical fact then get out of here don't waste your time anyway I think we're really off base and how we even conceive of the Christian life and and so there's other other things and then this is so this is the kind of the shallow faith that we're passing along tonight young people so I don't blame our young people man it is leaders who have passed this kind of shallow faith on I also have seen a lot of stuff that happens to ISM there's like you know when they're teaching these students or whatever there's more like entertainment than even like there's a lot of entertainment now and like yeah let's make sure that you know the high school groups like having a good time we want a lot of kids and you know but there's no again there's no knowledge it's like entertainment yeah I think in youth ministry yeah we're kind of stuck in the 80s like that was like that right that's something like the entertainment model and III I hate beating up on the church because I love the church but we're here just you know this show we're here because we love the church and I want to see great things happen yeah so anyway bringing guys like Ewan and different people to inspire people to be amazing and take the world by storm for Jesus that's why we're here we just we got to be more reflective and we got to think and III think yeah youth ministry hasn't changed a lot since the 80s in its kind of that entertainment model Pizza games short inspirational talk kind of thing hey and if I got big numbers that success right numbers yeah and we look but you look at the culture I just looked at another study and you just constantly hear these studies where the percentage between it was like 2003 or 2006 and today how many people identify is Protestant Christians and the numbers just keep plummeting and and amongst young people like Millennials Jen's ears you know kind of the 30 and under crowd I mean more and more of them affiliate with no religion that's that's what they want like they did we call them the nuns and oh and yes that's right it's like no really you know so obviously things you know we're not doing well in the culture we're losing even our own students who grow up at our churches when they go off to college or even right now they're losing them in high school now I think so I think in junior high in high school and part of it has to do with screens and technology and that kind of stuff well that's let's talk about that a little bit so what why is that so it's no secret and in most young people you talk to they're they're gonna admit it like so much of their life is lived in front of a glowing rectangle right in fact think about it we care these glowing rectangles around with us 24/7 smartphones iPads laptops we got you know multiple screens in every home every bedroom we're constantly confronted by the screen and I think what the screen does what we really have to think about is when it comes to life and the big questions of life who answers those questions for us like who's our authority and that now I think that question takes a little time to think about and and process a little bit but I think if we're gonna be honest for our culture for American culture we have given so much authority to a screen like our screen so here's what happens the screens stage the world for us they put up images and videos and and we see this stuff day in and day out right technology's omnipresent it's all around us we see it all day in fact Gen Z's and Millennials admit to spending about 6 hours a day on their smartphones 6 hours a day on their smartphones right so and this thing that's a lot yeah it's insane this thing is staging the world what do I mean by that and I mean it is it is telling us how we should be it's tell I mean just think about it you scroll you're scrolling through Instagram right and you're just looking at pictures and you're seeing pictures and people are posting what what they think is valuable what they with a value what they think is of worth what they think is important and you're just watching that and you've cornered on being I'm being told what I should be doing but that's what's happening it's staging the world and then as it stages the world it's telling us this is the way it should be so for instance right teenage girls they're scrolling through things they're seeing their friends put up pictures and they're seeing things like when they put up a picture that's more of a sexy picture a little risque or whatever for the getting more likes they're getting more comments right you know people are throwing up the the fire emoji right this is lit that's that's like that's like I've seen jokes on Instagram we're like I didn't get enough likes let me take off more clothes yeah exactly you know for girls but and so but that's that gets likes that in that so it gets reinforced and then and so it's staging the world from its putting pressure on them you know beautiful gorgeous sexy those are the kind of responses now you you know one that one is looking for because that's the world is telling us well that's that's what you want yeah that's what you want so it's state so this screen stages the world it's so it's the authority and it tells us how we ought to live how we ought to be in this world I was gonna say now it's changing those girls that weren't like that now they're going in that way just because that's what it's slowly over time it's you know it's you're not gonna look at one post and be like oh okay I'm gonna do you know do this it's it's the thousands of posts over time think about you know how a termite destroys a house like you don't even notice it at first and it could actually be years before you ever discover their termites in your house and you got to deal with the problem but by that time there's damage it's done that's that's what's going on here in the same way just slow and steady it's just the slow steady movement of our culture and all of a sudden 15 years down the road you've spent you know six hours a day on social media being shaped by it informed by it and and now we're seeing these Studies on anxiety and depression I think you might have said this quote or someone else but I think it was you you said something about social media can either like it could either egg build you up or it could like destroy your soul was that you yeah yeah actually that was how it kind of opened that talk is I wanted students to like wake up and I said if it can be soul corrupting yes this thing this screen yeah and I'm not just talking to students this is me this is you this is adults I see with adults as well everyone I struggle with it too yes this thing can corrupt my soul it can corrupt your soul over time and people think it might they might respond that's kind of an overstatement it's not these studies are coming out on this and so here's here would be my piece of homework for anyone who's listening who's like I don't know about that do a Google search for an article entitled have smartphones destroyed a generation have smartphones destroyed a generation it's written by a psychologist her name is gene twinge twe n GE gene twinge it's on the Atlantic it's you can find it online and she yeah I'll just just summarize she talks about how we're on screens all the time and the the like the percentage of young people who have screens now and the correlation with what she says she says I gen or gen Z kind of the 20 and under crowd yeah she said they're on the world that the brink of the worst mental health crisis and really aids that's a quote from her so they're on the brink of the worst mental health crisis in decades and and when did when did this article come out this was last September yeah so that in the end there's all kinds of other things we could look at I mean what else does she say just a couple more things she well she talked about how there's a connection with smartphones and now what you have is young people who spend literally like all day in the summer when they're off of school instead of like being out with friends yeah instead they're all day they're in their room on their smartphone and in in and so we're seeing this correlation between that we're seeing how the rise of depression and anxiety and you can look at there's all kinds of different studies but you can look at things like the the more hours per day you spend on social media as social media and a smartphone the greater risk you are for depression and anxiety if you for things like things like going to bed with your smartphone if you take your your smartphone into bed with you or you know a screen into bed with you then your rates of depression correlate with higher rates you just when you live your life more on the screen we're just seeing it its impact and you know what this this is something that I wrestle with with my own kids you know we've had some hard conversations with our own kids about some of their struggles with of seeing other things that people are posting and and that you know that - that hashtag FOMO right fear of missing out like that sorry that's real fear for a lot of these students they see this stuff and they they they think they're missing out on things they're missing out on all this good stuff and of course what are people posting oh they went to the school dance or they went out to dinner and they're eating this good food or they had this great big cage it's all the highlights yeah yeah yeah and what you ain't but so then that represents reality or that that's that's our perception of reality right it's it's not a real reality because you're not seeing actually all those moments when the person is alone or bored or you're not actually even seeing that the student who just posted that picture of being out at the movies or hanging out with all their friends when that moment that they posted that picture that they were actually in their bedroom bored and they were looking at other peoples pictures going man I'm missing out no one's hanging out me my life sucks and so they go and they get an old picture in post that even though the and so they're just they're kind of lying about what they're doing to try and you know they staged the you know like David said with the gens Z's is like they're staging it's it's their they're staging they're it's like a brand they're they're creating this brand this look Instagram yeah of of what life is but it's not it's not real yeah and so so here's a way to think about this because I think that's a huge point right there I think social media in the screen particularly so the platform of social media right so whether we're talking about snapchat or Instagram or you know Twitter or whatever there there are certain lies that these social media platforms kind of tell they can tell us that when we buy into them it impacts our souls so for instance one of them one of those lies is I am who I represent myself to be right I am who other people I am the person that the people see and so we construct this like online identity right so we're thinking about what we post and we and think of you know students will totally relate to this think about how many times you take that selfie or that you or the group picture or whatever like how many photos will you take so you get the right one alright so I'm going to take 30 of them so I can get that just that right angle and if it does if I don't look good enough I'm not gonna post it that kind of thing so there's a lot of effort into kind of curating this online identity and then here's think about the whole system of likes and followers that just reinforces stuff so if someone likes my you know I threw up this picture people like I throw up this picture not too many people liked it so we don't really want to go in that direction that's right that informs you so I'm gonna start posting more on this kind of stuff and it starts forming you it starts forming your identity and in so students will post a picture it won't get enough likes and it actually impacts how they feel about themselves so what do they do deletes right they delete the picture cuz they don't want to picture up that doesn't have that many likes because what's gonna happen is their identity gets tied into something like this yeah you know so and they can create this whole false identity and and they can you know it gets reinforced by followers and likes so that's one of the lies another lie I think that it tells us is that you know I'm the center of the the center of my own universe right when it comes to life you think about technology it really is now more centered on us so about us yeah yeah you think about the students today they they they don't realize that you know these things phones yeah before they were ever smartphones we had phones and they had this little thing attached to it like I like I think you and I know what these are like it was a we call them cords right this is like a phone cord and you you had to go to a particular location in the house where there was a phone with a phone attached to a phone line and a phone cord and you had to go to that particular place and so you had to go to it and then call and yet you know you're there in the whatever the family room or the the kitchen where other people could hear you now think about this thing is tailored to you it goes with you now you don't go to it it comes with you and then there's all these now apps and there's all the stuff that it's catering to your needs and that's that's why it's so that's why people are so addicted to it yeah it gets addicted and then it tells us that we're the center of the universe we are actually going I got lost we're going to a two minute break we'll be right back with Bret we'll see you right after the break more live with Ryan race coming up 180 days 564 61 73 or post your questions using the hashtag live Ryan riess on his Instagram Twitter or Facebook I think I speak for the entire administration when I say [Music] now back to live with Ryan Ruiz we are Brett with Bret cut we are back with Bret Conkel in studio from maven and we've just been talking about the effects of technology this is what he does for a living his whole focus is to pour into middle school high school which we call them the gen Z and even the millenials and get them equipped with apologetics and just information so they could uh basically they can follow God and they can live out that purpose that they were created for and not get fooled by the ideas of the world and get distracted but to get focus and get the tools that they need so before the break we were just talking about the you know you were talking about the whole cellphone out it's it's a it's catered to the students that they're getting all the apps they're sleeping with it in their bed it's affecting their psyche you know going let's continue with that yeah so it and this is the one of the ways that it influences us is it tells us these lies it tells us that we think about it I must have choices and I can't be happy if I don't have choices right so everything has a drop-down menu everything's got a drop-down menu everything has options and so we get kind of addicted to this choice in fact what happens is we now think that in order for me to be happy I have to have choices right I see this with like you just at home with my kids like the other night I was talking to my kids and I was gonna take him out to dinner mom was out of town so I was like hey let's go out to dinner where do you guys want to go and we get a couple different suggestions so then I said okay let's narrow it down to three right and we got three choices and it was crazy I four of my kids are at home and there was definitely everyone chose like a different option and then one of the kids was like I whatever who's chosen and our burger though that wasn't even on the leg wasn't yeah because we were going big like weird like talking it Spaghetti Factory anyway but when we kind of honed in on one place we had to pick one place you could just see other kids and we're talking good places so we ended up going the Spaghetti Factory was killer place yeah a couple of the kids like ah you know and I I said to him I said are you so you're not happy that we're gonna go have a really good dinner it's Spaghetti Factory now is that what you're saying like with your reaction and and hey think about it I mean we're gonna go eat really good food and you're unhappy about that why is that why is that because you've been shaped by a culture that tells you if you don't get your choice what you want right now at this moment then you can't be happy and it leads to ungratefulness and unthankfulness and discontentment that's and that's a recipe for anxiety and depression and unhappiness and so that I mean though that's the that's how this thing can shape us and so it's so subtle right it's so subtle but over time that shapes us and so now here's what parents do like somebody talked to the parents for a second so what parents will do is you know two or three kids at home people want different things so now I hear about these parents who will even cook different meals for different kids to make them all happy or you know if they're gonna go out whatever for fast food or something they'll go to multiple places to make everyone happy now I'm not saying that that's wrong to do that in and of itself but I want from number one for us to see how culture shapes us and influences us to do things number two if you're doing that all the time then what we're teaching our young people is that you can't be happy without choice and and so and and then there's a you know I think another influence is that students that are always thinking they're always kind of holding off on decisions they're not seizing the moment they're they're kind of waiting for that next best thing like well there's got to be a better choice that's coming you know a newer choice that I'm gonna wait for and and so then they don't seize the opportunities that are in front of them as well and they miss out on some really good things another life from social media is that others must see me right think about it social media is constantly inviting you to display yourself again not that it's wrong I want to be clear here people I don't understand I'm not saying that using a smartphone or using a screen or using a social media platform is wrong in and of itself I mean I've got them right right you can check out our social media and that kind of thing I'm just here's what I want to do I want to say even though it's not wrong or immoral or sinful or something like that it's also not neutral it's not neutral meaning just by using it it can shape you just by using this thing it can shape you and that's it does that by staging the world for us and so it's constantly inviting us to post yeah it gets shape you let's talk about that for a second it could shape you because whatever you're looking at will shape you so you get on and you start watching say just a bunch of like fight videos next thing you know I mean if you're watching fight videos it's you're gonna start getting more aggressive and it desensitizes yeah it's gonna start shaping or hey you start watching that like start watching some pornographic stuff so I like watching porn that is gonna start shaping you because people go how is social media and technology got to shape you exactly that start watch that stuff and you're gonna go into that direction whatever you start looking at the eye is the light to the body whatever you start looking to that goes right into your heart and comes out that's what you become yeah you are what you eat in a sense and if you're eating that stuff from technology you become that yeah it does shape you yeah yeah I mean that whole issue of porn but with this thing yes you wanna talk about that little bit that's the big issue think about that what what we do is we put into the hands of our young people Madore you know unfettered unrestrained access to pornography and we say don't look don't look don't look it's like throw out like back in the day it'd be like throwing a bunch of duffel bag up porn pornography mags in the element don't look at him yeah yeah and exactly I'm going old-school 80s yeah you want you an 80s I'm taking you that yeah in and what we're finding now I mean this is a social experiment yeah that's never been tried before now we're trying it and we're seeing devastating results in fact Time magazine last year had a piece on young men now who have grown up for the last 10 or 15 years on porn easy access online watch it all the time a totally addicted and now they cannot they talk about how they can't function sexually with real women anymore it's actually what happened is porn ruined sex for them and if they can't even get excited with girls they know the real no and it's destroyed their sexuality and it just goes to show like look if there's a way that God has designed us and when you follow his design plan yeah it leads to goodness and flourishing you know so so pornography cuz a lot of you know when I talk about this stuff in the high schools or you know whatever I talk about you know this the students they laugh but I've you know I've even seen mainstream magazines like like GQ and different people they are they are saying that there is major problems it's not like they just just so even listen there's no this is not just a Christian world this is the mainstream not the secular world saying there is an issue people are getting affected and they can't even they can't even interact with with a woman yeah there's it's done there's some more voices that are kind of speaking out on this yeah and it's it's it's a question of reality and again I mean it what's the source of all reality if the source of all reality is God and if he's our designer then again his views on reality gonna be the right views and what he says about human sexuality is often of course the Christian view of sexuality it's kind of you know made fun of or mocked or whatever but if God's the designer of human sexuality then he knows the best way for us to live with this thing and and and it's being it's again it's not just a no no no no no that's like how we characterize Christianity a lot it but it's actually a yes like God says no to certain things so that you can actually say yes to better things more beautiful things more you know fulfilling things so yeah so we I want to keep talking about this I'm gonna let the listeners know in a couple minutes we're gonna talk about what we can do to combat these things and to move forward so yeah let me give a couple more lies here think about this one here's a lie that were tempted by with social media I don't have to deal with you right I don't deal with you you know what you said something I don't like you made a comment I don't like you you posted something I didn't like unfollow right block mute whatever and and and so if someone does something or says something we don't like them we are conditioned by social media to just unfriend them unfollow them it's much easier to just abandon the relationship abandon the person then to kind of go through that difficult demanding relationship and that and so what happens is when we get conditioned by that it spills over into real life and so young people are admitting that they have tough time sustaining friendships communicating relationships and when there's conflict there they're out right and then think about think about someone who's been conditioned by that for 25 years and then decides to get into a marriage relationship Dawn's difficult relationship there is yeah you know there's no unfriending or unfollowing at that point unless you're gonna call it quits and and but we began we've been molded relationally by that whole thing so these are the you know these are the kind of lies and then what we see is normal for everyone like what I scroll through what I'm seeing is normal for everyone but think about if you think about the kind of the slice the the small percentage of people who are on kind of social media typically affluent middle-class upper-class Westerners so much of the world is not represented on social media and so it gives us a false perception of reality and we think oh you know the good life consists of clothes and celebrity status and food and vacations and that's just not how the vast majority of people live but this again shapes our view of reality think about that good I mean you got to have you got you got to have money to be able to get a smartphone yeah pay the bills for them you gotta have something and a lot of yeah most of the world doesn't you know yeah so those those are the things that social media can tell us that can shape us so what can we do well there's a number of things you can do number one I'd say if you are if you are someone who is a follower of Christ the first thing you can do is you can ask what you can ask the right questions and the right question and that I should ask about my phone or my laptop or any screen is how does this thing help me to love God and serve my neighbor right I mean that's what Jesus said the great commandment write love God and love your neighbor as yourself so how can this thing help me serve others because I want to say hey there is great potential not just for bad and for evil but for good there's great potential for good here in this technology yeah so how can we use that and there's no in-between it's either good or bad yeah I mean and there's different degrees of impact goodness and badness right but it's not the again it's not neutral so what we don't want to say hey just throw I'm not saying throw your screens out the door yeah for for good because there's some great good that we can do so the very first thing we do is a follower of Jesus Christ is we come to the table and say okay let me just ask certain questions now you think about in the culture the culture is not of course asking that questions the culture says that the cultural questions are hey what will make life more convenient what will make me happy what is you know those of questions of the culture and we just simply adopt those things so the reason the only reason someone might bias you know an upgraded iPhone or whatever is because it's got new features and well as actually as a follower of Christ that may not be good enough reasons for me to do that I got to think about deeper questions so I think we got to start with even just thinking about asking different questions about this stuff and saying okay how can this thing help me how will it help me love God and love my neighbors so we start with the right questions and then we become the right kind of people because there's no set of rules no list of rules that we could create that's exhaustive that covers everything we have to also be thinking about okay who are we becoming on the inside like things like character and goodness and you know so what kind of people are we becoming you know Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit you know in Galatians chapter 5 22 love joy peace patience gentleness kindness goodness faithfulness self-control are these things am i growing in these kind of things because ultimately it's those inner that inner character that's gonna help me have self-control when there's no external rules when mom and dad aren't there okay so those are huge things but very practically some things that we can do just really practically is number one we need to unplug regularly like unplugged from from screens on a regular basis how long what do you think I would say okay so I would say start with just a day from morning to night time and so I guess till are you crazy I guess what's great with this I get students who look at me when I suggest that and I can see it on their faces like are you crazy no way and I tell them the the amount of resistance you have to me even suggesting that reveals yeah that you're addicted to that thing you know that thing controls you you don't control it right and so for those who would struggle with that I'd say do it in groups do it with a friend take a break unplug with a friend or a group of friends who we're and you say okay and maybe maybe they start with a half a day start with certain hours start with a four hour period it's like fasting yeah exact art with a meal that's right with a couple hours that's right don't go on a forty day fast right so unplug regularly and you can do that in different ways it can be certain hours or timeframe and ultimately I think what would be really healthy for our souls is if all of us took like a weekly break right took like a Sabbath took took took a whole day every week just to unplug from every from all of it but then you could have screen free locations so like in our house one thing that we do is at dinner time at meals we have a general rule and of course the other every once in a while there's an exception for whatever reason but generally speaking we sit down for dinner there's no screens zero yeah no screens and I even try not to have it on me I'll try to put it up on a little counter we have because if it's in my pocket then it's buzzing yeah and it's it's a distraction so if we can get those things out of there the the dinner table is a screen free or if we're out to dinner or if we're out first snack or whatever late night in and out run we're no screens at the table no phones at the table it turned off here if you go out so here's a practical way to do this with your friends and your buddies do it do do a phone stack right if your the phone stack where everyone takes their phone and you can put it on on vibrate or whatever and you stack them and during a meal and if anyone the first person who reaches and grabs their phone before the end of the meal before you guys are done has to pay for everyone's meal that'll stop you from you know getting your phone and then you're not looking at your phone you're actually engaging with one another yeah there's iContact there's it's an opportunity to go deeper in relationship with one another and get to know relationships have got shallow because I mean I'm I'm not talking about anyone was just even talking about myself did I could be at dinner with my wife or my friend and we're hanging out and all so now like getting Texas or whatever I'm looking at stuff in on Monday I'm what am I even doing that dinner yeah no yeah it cuts us off from really developing deep relationships and friendships yeah which is what we need is human being that's why how God created us yeah absolutely absolutely so unplug screen free location screen free hours screen free days just figure out ways to unplug I would say you know and sometimes you do need to unplug you just need to take a long break so I know some you know high school students in my home home church youth group here in Southern California who just kind of dumped certain social media platforms said you know what I'm off Instagram for a while I'm just gonna shut it down for a few months and and they you have talked about things like that so sometimes you got to do that too you know especially that some people do that yeah in I would say test yourself you want to see the power it has over you take a break and when you really struggle with that that'll tell you you need to take a break and you need to take more breaks I even heard of someone saying that they would only check their Instagram one time a day like before they go to bed yeah that's that I mean that's yeah that's also that's a great way to limit it and its influence on you I'd say turning here's a real basic one turn off your notifications don't let they're saying you know call out to you every single second of the day turn off all your notifications the only notifications I have her for phone calls and texts otherwise every social media platform notification is off because I know how this thing can control me and I don't want it to control me I want to control it so turn off notifications I would say if you've got the kind of relationship with like a mentor or your parents or a good friend where they can help you set some ground rules so with my with my kids my daughter got a smartphone she's 15 she got it I don't know I know it was a year ago or so where she got you know kind of a full-blown smartphone and we I came up with a contract it's like a two-page contract where it spells out some of the rules and guidelines but also the why because I wonder I want my kids to know there's a why behind this there's not just a rule but there's there's reasons why and I always give my kids the opportunity if they think my rules are off base they don't like them they can always give me a reason why they think I'm off-base right and I'll try my very best to listen and if they're reasonable if they've got better reasons than I do I want to be just you know willing and humble enough to say okay let's change this rule this rule doesn't need to be here you gave me good reasons why I shouldn't have this rule but so they know we can have that conversation so we laid out this contract with the what's and the why and things like don't you know don't take your your phone to bed you can never have your phone in bed with you because I've looked at the studies I know what that correlates I know the temptation to be on you know lying even you know more I've read a couple of those too yeah and so things like that and and then I had her you know look over it and if she'd agreed to it then I was like all right yeah we'll do this you know now with that said have you ever heard of I was coming back we have like five minutes left before this show ends but um I was flying back from Florida or something and I was sitting next to this parent and her and her daughter we were talking and they're from Texas and she was you know she was complaining to me that her daughter's you know just being you know she's 12 years old just you know doing her thing and she's like yeah you know she just kids acting like this I'm just gonna I'm gonna just turn off all of her apps I'm like what she's like yeah I have an app that actually controls her phone so basically she has full access over her phone to like shut it down so the way she uses is like hey you know for everything's cool were doing good you know you could use your apps or like if she's on restriction or or forgets a point where she can use her phone certain hours it's open from this time like it turns on from like after school to like 5:00 p.m. and then it all shuts down it races all the apps on the phone if you're heard about those apps yeah yeah I've seen I've seen some of those and I think those are really interesting they can be a great tool I think the thing you want to do is in this where these kind of conversations are happened when they happen up front like they're there you know because they set the expectations right so I made a mistake with my oldest daughter you know given her or cellphone and they're just kind of like saying hey go for it like get all the social media you want you know do whatever and then realize oh she's you know as a junior higher she's having trouble managing this and starting to pull it back in yeah then it's like well she already had it and now she I'm asking her to give it up that makes it a challenging thing but at the end of the day a parent who loves their kids sometimes has to do the tough things and that might be shutting down the phone whether it's using an app or or actually taking the phone you know that kind of thing and this is where students where where and all of us need to think about like hey these kind of things are privileges they're not rights these are privileges and especially if gosh if someone else has gifted it to me and they're they're paying for it for me and I mean that's that's that's a gift these these are these are like serious issues as I have kids that are they're too grown-up I mean I just think about phones like a gun almost it's like it could kill you it could destroy or kill your soul basically destroy your soul it's like we got to be careful you get you get the phone into a kid and you don't have rules set up I mean did they they just start getting involved in certain things they start seeing I mean it will like you said there's no in-between yeah the social science proves this yeah there's just too many people invite facts are out there a factor there this thing will not meet your deepest needs and desires no technology ever can only a person can we have one minute left any last words wake up wake up the social media technology has a huge impact on our of course our culture and our society but also on us personally and and I would say and I am I'm starting to hear some of this from some students who are kind of pushing back and saying wait wait a second okay we've kind of had this experience now for you know however many years that we've had smartphones in particular right and they're starting to say wait a second we're you know we've kind of just been handed this and and it's it's just been like baptizes a it's good just go foot go with it and students are saying now actually we're seeing some stuff from this and unfortunately it's going to take some sumrekt lives to wake us up but at the very least if students can can sit back and go wait I think I need to take a deeper look at this yeah it's true because we like again we've been given it and now there's been no studies so just Unleashed but now there's there's enough information that uh I mean I have a one student he's one of my friends sons yeah he was in high school and he was you know in into social media and the phone was basically controlling his life and he started hearing the whosoever's killed a noise message about you know kill the noise is basically disconnect and tuned into God and basically what happens he disconnected and literally ended up becoming the UFC and I UFC the wrestler state champion wrestler because he disconnected in tune into Gaga Thank You Brett for being on the show and dude I got to have you back ASAP I'd love to come back this has been live with Ryan race to connect or find out more about riots click on Ryan - Reese comm check next Saturday at 9 p.m. for live with Ryan Reese

Channel: Ryan Ries

Views: 3,770

Rating: 4.9024391 out of 5

Keywords: K-WAVE, The Whosoevers, Ryan Ries, Calvary Chapel Golden Springs, Calvary Chapel, 107.9fm, The Movement, Saints & Sinners, Kill the Noise, Holy Spirit, God, Technology, Maven Truth, Training, Depression, Anxiety, Digital, Noise, Gen Z

Id: cTCK6VT-k34

Length: 57min 55sec (3475 seconds)

Published: Wed May 16 2018