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Cultivators and Creators
How Gen Z is shaping, and shaped by, social media.
An In-Depth Look From Axis Ministries
The experience of scrolling through social media is like the experience of looking through a window at other people living their lives; they’re out there, and you’re in here, and there’s no real way to bridge the gap. Even if you meet up with those people in real life, another look at your favorite social media platform puts you behind the window again.
In the 1990s, the game “Super Mario 64” required Mario to navigate the world by leaping into portraits hung on various walls in Princess Peach’s castle. Our inability to actually do this means we’re forever excluded from whatever our devices portray. Add to this the fact that 53% of Gen Zers say they “doomscroll”* (spend excessive time online consuming negative news or other content), and it’s no wonder Young Life’s RELATE Project correlates too much time passively scrolling with greater mental health issues (see page 16).
Christians believe human beings have been made in the image of a Creator; the first thing God does in the Bible is construct a beautiful, complex world for us. One of the main ramifications is that creating, and being creative, are essential parts of what it means to be made in his image.
Creativity isn’t just about doing things like painting, writing, and cooking; it is fundamentally about participating and contributing to our world. Some might argue social media is altogether the wrong avenue for pursuing this. But actually responding to others’ posts, trying to engage in conversation, as well as contributing our own posts, can all help signal to our own brains that life is not just something happening to us, but something we get to take an active role in shaping.
So why do so many teens end up passively scrolling through their social media feeds, instead of posting or even commenting?
The Passive Voice
Well, first of all, passively scrolling is easier. Scrolling through your feed and occasionally throwing out a “like” requires little effort; taking the time to create and post something is harder, especially when the expectation is you must be attractive, or funny, etc. Even finding the right words for a comment requires breaking out of the trance social media feeds can pull us into.
But the explanation may also have something to do with a difference in how users define the primary purpose of social media. Is it a tool for keeping up with what’s happening, and/or being entertained? Or is it actually a tool for connecting with other people and expressing ourselves?
For those who see social media as a place for connecting, posting something can still produce anxiety about whether we’ll get enough likes from others. This is something every generation should be able to understand: putting yourself out there requires overcoming the fear you won’t be accepted when you do it.
We also live in an age where expressing the wrong opinion in public is seen as one of the worst things a person can do. This can bring an added level of perceived peril to even something like leaving a comment; saying something that contradicts the current cultural orthodoxy can sometimes mean public shaming, or losing a current (or future) job. Sometimes it feels safer to stick to generic flattery, or even just the like button.
But when social media becomes just a way to keep up with what’s happening, or a way to be entertained, we can end up giving others’ contributions to the world more importance than making our own.
Made for So Much More
In his book Culture Making, Andy Crouch argues Christians were made to be more than just critics, consumers, copiers, or condemners of culture. We were made, he says, to be cultivators and creators — “people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture,” and “people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought of or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful.”
So what would doing this online even look like? It could start by recognizing the way we show up online will always be connected to who we are offline. Toward this end, here are three questions to invite conversation and reflection with the rising generation:
- Would you say you primarily use social media in an active way (posting, commenting, engaging) or a passive way (scrolling, maybe occasionally giving likes)?
- How often do you go to social media versus just away from something else you want to avoid in life?
- Do you believe life is fundamentally something that happens to us, or something we get to take an active role in shaping?
We were made to be cultivators and creators — ‘people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture.”’
At Axis, we translate pop culture to help parents and caring adults understand and disciple their teenagers. For more help understanding your teens’ world, go to axis.org and sign up for our Culture Translator newsletter.
*New Morning Consult research, March 2024