“Making Social Media a Positive Place,” Ensign, December 2020
Young Adults
Making Social Media a Positive Place
Five years ago, my husband and I decided to start a YouTube channel, where we began to genuinely share the way we live as members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Our idea was to talk about our beliefs through our lifestyle.
We have had the great blessing of receiving inspiring messages from several of our followers telling us about going to church for the first time or even getting baptized! These messages have filled us with so much joy.
We are very grateful for the enriching experiences that social networks have offered us in spreading the message of the restored gospel just by sharing our lives. But while social media can generate incredible experiences, help us develop meaningful relationships, and allow us to share our testimony of the gospel, it can also give us experiences that weaken us spiritually, lead us to judge others in unrighteous ways, and cause us to lose sight of who we truly are.
This month’s young adult section will address those topics and more. It’s easy to compare ourselves or our lives to what we see on social media, but we can learn to use social media to create a positive space where we resist judging ourselves or others, gain confidence in our divine nature, and most importantly, convey to others, through our example, the happiness that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings.
Bárbara Rodríguez