There are two things I’m seeing on social media that I believe are converging and creating quite the difficult situation. First, actually comes from an economic principle. I’m not an economist so forgive me if I butcher this a bit. My understanding is that this principle is from Adam Smith but put into these words by Henry George. (But I’m getting my source here from a book on the board game Monopoly). Here is the principle:

In a family or other small group, altruism prevails, but the farther away a person gets from an individual, the less altruistic he or she behaves toward them.

That was a pretty bad deal when this principle impacted economic theories and principles in the early 1900s. It’s quite another thing when we spend time every day online interacting with people that we do not actually know. We’re far less altruistic online than we are in real-world relationships.

Now combine that with this from Pete Scazzero:

“It is not possible for a Christian to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. For some reason, however, the vast majority of Christians today live as if the two concepts have no intersection. Our standards of what it means to be ‘spiritual’ totally bypass many glaring inconsistencies. We have learned to accept that:
-You can be a dynamic, gifted speaker for God in public and be an unloving spouse and parent at home.
-You can function as a church board member or pastor and be unteachable, insecure, and defensive.
-You can memorize entire books of the New Testament and still be unaware of your depression and anger, even displacing it on other people.
-You can fast and pray a half-day a week for years as a spiritual discipline and constantly be critical of others, justifying it as discernment.
-You can lead hundreds of people in a Christian ministry while driven by a deep personal need to compensate for a nagging sense of failure.
-You can pray for deliverance from the demonic realm when in reality you are simply avoiding conflict, repeating an unhealthy pattern of behavior traced back to the home in which you grew up.
-You can be outwardly cooperative at church but unconsciously try to undercut or defeat your supervisor by coming habitually late, constantly forgetting meetings, withdrawing and become apathetic, or ignoring the real issue behind why you are hurt and angry.”

Combine these two things. Emotionally immature leaders who daily interact with people they don’t even know. And what do you get? You get the acid we see on social media every day.

So what’s needed to help our social media interactions. One, to pause before interacting and remind yourself that this is someone made in the image of God. To put an actual face and a relationship to this person that you are interacting with. And if you can’t do it, then maybe don’t speak.

Secondly, we need to pursue emotional maturity. For far too long we’ve been given emotional maturity a pass. People love to see a good fist-fight and they rubberneck to see a train wreck. The result is that emotional children are given massive platforms. It’s not okay for my online life to be different than my actual life. Just as it’s not okay for me to be someone in the pulpit that I wouldn’t be in the pew. We need integrity.

God help us.