Why Christians Should Have a Presence on Social Media

The reasons some of my friends left Facebook were also the primary reasons I chose to stay. Like the rest of the world, social media is a dark place that needs the light of Jesus.

Social media is not going away anytime soon. Its usage – both in the number of users and the amount of time spent each day – goes up every year. According to a 2022 report by Hootsuite, 75% of the world’s population aged 13 and over use social media. That chunk is 75% for North America. And social media presence hits a whopping 93% of those who use the internet.

Social media is not only firmly ingrained in the culture, it also helps shape it. Anywhere people spend so much of their time will impact their hearts and minds. That same Hootsuite study also gave statistics for how much time people spend on social media each day. Around the world, users spend an average of 2 hours and 28 minutes each day on social media. The daily average for Americans is only slightly less at 2 hours and 11 minutes.

Note: These averages are slightly higher for females than males. Also, the average goes up as the age drops. For instance, females aged 16-24 spend an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes on social media each day.

The average American Christian spends at least twice as much time on social media each day than we do praying and reading our Bibles. And we spend about the same amount of time connecting there each day as we spend in church each week. 

Social media is not evil. It is a neutral tool that can be used for good or bad. If we use it correctly, social media can be a powerful tool for evangelism and discipleship. Unfortunately, it’s not only the secular world that uses social media as a weapon. Sometimes Christians – whether we realize it or not – use social media in ways that harm others and dishonor the name of Christ.

In an audio answer to the question “Should Christians be on social media,” Paul Tripp highlighted the neutral nature of social media and its potential for both good and bad: “I think that social media is just like a screwdriver. With a screwdriver, you can build beautiful things, wonderful mechanical things; but you could also stab somebody in the face with it. It’s just a tool, and social media is a tool that can be used for enormous good.”

Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is not “Should Christians be on social media?” but rather, “How should Christians act on social media?”