Social Media Discipleship Is Making Us Shallow

I'm going to say something that might sound hypocritical coming from a guy who posts content online: social media is discipling us, and not in the way we think.

I chop up sermons. I post clips. I try to get the algorithm to push my stuff to people who need it. I'm not against any of that.

But I've started noticing something in myself and in the people I talk to. We're consuming more Christian content than ever and going deeper with God less than ever.

Something doesn't add up.

The Dopamine Hit Gospel

Here's what I think is happening.

We scroll. We find a 60-second clip of a pastor saying something that resonates. We feel a little boost. A little hit of encouragement. Maybe we share it, maybe we save it, probably we just keep scrolling.

And we call that discipleship.

But that little dopamine hit isn't transformation. It's consumption. There's a difference between eating and being nourished, and most of us are snacking our way through the Christian life wondering why we're spiritually malnourished.

I do editing work. I know how these clips are made. Every pause gets cut. Every slow moment gets trimmed. The goal is to hack your attention span, to deliver the maximum emotional punch in the minimum time. It's optimized for engagement, not formation.

And the algorithms reward it. The more a clip makes you feel something fast, the more it spreads. The more it spreads, the more we make content like that. The cycle feeds itself.

More Content, Less Depth

Here's the crazy part: there is probably more Christian content available right now than at any other time in human history.

Sermons, podcasts, devotionals, reels, shorts, threads, articles. It's endless. You could spend every waking moment consuming faith-based content and never run out.

And I think it's been to our detriment.

Not because the content is bad. A lot of it is good. But because it's trained us to receive rather than seek. To scroll rather than study. To get our word from an algorithm rather than wrestling with the actual Word.

The algorithms are built to show you what you want to see. You engage with content about grace, you get more content about grace. You watch videos about spiritual warfare, here come more videos about spiritual warfare. And pretty soon you're convinced that every clip that shows up on your feed is a "direct word from God."

Maybe. Or maybe the algorithm just knows your preferences.

What We're Missing

Robert Grant told me a story about his son that's been stuck in my head.

His kid woke up at 3am wanting to ride his hoverboard. When Robert told him no, the kid started crying: "I have no toys to play with." Meanwhile, his room is full of toys. He just couldn't see them because his focus was locked on the one thing he couldn't have.

Robert used it as a teaching moment. He told his son about kids in other countries who make soccer balls out of trash and are happy. He helped him see what he already had access to.

And then Robert turned it on us: "We don't realize that we have the living word of God in front of us."

That's the thing. We have access to Scripture in a way no previous generation could have imagined. Multiple translations on our phones. Study tools. Commentaries. Historical context at our fingertips.

And we'd rather scroll for clips.

The Difference Between Information and Revelation

I learned a formula in Teen Challenge that's stuck with me: information plus application equals transformation.

Notice what's missing from that equation? Consumption.

You can consume endless information and never be transformed by any of it. Transformation requires application. It requires doing something with what you've received. And that kind of work doesn't happen in 60-second increments between checking notifications.

There's a reason Scripture talks about meditating on the Word day and night. About hiding it in your heart. About being doers of the Word, not just hearers.

That kind of engagement takes time. It takes sitting with a passage that doesn't immediately make sense. It takes asking questions, wrestling, journaling, praying. It takes the kind of sustained attention that social media is specifically designed to destroy.

The Way Forward

I'm not saying delete your apps and throw your phone in a river. I post content online. I think there's value in it.

But I am saying we need to be honest about what scrolling is and isn't doing for us.

It's not discipleship. It's not deep study. It's not the kind of engagement with God's Word that actually changes us from the inside out.

If you're rebuilding your life after addiction, this matters even more. Early recovery is when habits form. When new patterns get established. If your primary spiritual input is algorithm-driven content, you're building on sand.

Here's a simple challenge: before you open any social media tomorrow, open your Bible. Not a devotional app. Not a clip. The actual text. Sit with it for ten minutes. Ask God to speak. See what happens.

It might feel slow. It might feel boring compared to the dopamine hits you're used to. That's okay. Depth usually does.

But depth is where transformation lives.

And transformation is what we're actually after.

This article is based on a conversation from the Rebuilding Life After Addiction podcast. Listen to the full episode here.