This is the first in a short series on what social media quietly does to us—the deeper stuff underneath the screen-time debates. We’ll get into how it shapes our sense of worth, how we see ourselves, how we treat each other.
But we’re starting closer to home: with what it’s doing to our ability to sit still, be present, and hear anything quiet enough to matter.
I was bopping along to my new Spotify playlist as I was driving to work when I thought, “I should turn this off and pray.” Not even a half-second went by before I thought, “Nah, that’s boring” and kept jamming.
At that moment, no kids were fighting for my attention, no one was watching me, I had no deadlines, I just didn’t want to give up my solo car concert.
We can’t even sit in silence while driving alone anymore.
Social media was built to hold our attention for as long as humanly possible.
And a mind kept constantly stimulated slowly forgets how to be still.
I Scrolled for Three Hours and Didn’t Notice
The other night, I was looking forward to sitting on the couch for the rest of the night with no obligations. I ended up opening TikTok and was excited to scroll until I decided to go to sleep. What I didn’t anticipate was that I’d scroll TikTok for three hours. THREE HOURS of my life spent doomscrolling on TikTok. I got trapped in the engineered dopamine drip of videos and didn’t look up until I had wasted so much time.
This need for constant stimulation even bleeds into quality time with my husband. We were choosing a new show to watch, but it wasn’t as engaging as we thought it’d be, at least in the beginning. At one point, I got my phone out to play a mindless game just to have something to do with my hands while I watched. The TV was already stimulating and it still wasn’t enough; I wanted a second stream running.
And now, it’s spread past my phone entirely—I couldn’t even drive in silence.
This is happening to all of us.
Our Attention Was Engineered Away
Our capacity for stillness got worn down. It’s not laziness or weakness—our baseline got reset by design.
And this is NOT to say that music or TikTok is evil. Sometimes a mindless scroll is just what we need. But when we choose to scroll instead of being present, we trade the best for the “fine”. We’re not doing anything wrong on paper. There’s no single guilty moment to point to—which is exactly why it’s so easy to miss.
Here’s what’s actually happening in our brains. Every hit of stimulation spikes dopamine—the “wanting” chemical, the one that makes us reach for the next thing. The brain rebalances by dropping us below baseline afterward. If we do this all day, every day, the baseline sinks. So ordinary, unstimulating life starts to read as flat and boring, because our reward system now needs more just to feel normal.
This is why silence lost to my new playlist during my work commute. Wanting music in the car isn’t new. But not being able to give it up for two minutes to pray—when I actually wanted to—that’s new. That’s the lowered baseline talking.
God Usually Speaks in a Whisper
I never truly appreciated silence until after I had kids. Don’t get me wrong; a chaotic morning with giggling toddlers warms my heart. But when that giggling turns into, “Mommy, Daddy, he hit me!”, I find myself longing for a few minutes earlier when they were still sleeping (and then of course, when they’re sleeping, I miss the chaos).
All this to say: silence is nice. But more importantly, the things that matter most usually arrive quietly.
God’s most important messages often come at a volume we can’t hear over Instagram reels.
In 1 Kings 19:9-12, Elijah hears God speak to him. A strong wind came and tore the mountains, an earthquake shook the ground, and a great fire broke out, but God didn’t speak through any of those.
“And after the fire the sound of a low whisper” (1 Kings 19:12).
God was in the gentle sound we’d miss through noise.
A whisper doesn’t stand a chance against a FYP engineered to hold our attention captive.
The People We’re Half-Present For
With so many things competing for our attention, prayer becomes almost impossible. Not because we’ve stopped believing per se, but because we can’t hold still long enough to pray. We miss the whisper, because we’re busy doing something else.
In Luke 10:38-42, Jesus and the disciples went to stay with Mary and Martha. Martha was “distracted by much serving” and was “worried and upset about many things”. But Jesus told her to chill out (not literally) because “one thing is necessary”: close fellowship with the Lord.
Distractions crowded out the one thing that mattered, even though Martha’s distractions were legitimate work.
Martha lost the best to the good. We lose it to noise.
And we do this to people too. We’re half-present with whoever’s in the room, the child talking while we’re mid-scroll. We nod like we’re listening but our kids know when we’re half-watching their new trick they learned.
I used to tease my mom about her “Uh huh, I see!” response when we were kids trying to get her to watch us do something silly. Now, with two toddlers, I use her response maybe more than she did.
But then my daughter calls me out: “Mommy, you’re not looking!” And she’s right. I put the phone down—but I hate that she’s the one who noticed first.
How to Reclaim Your Attention (Slowly)
The fix here isn’t “never scroll social media ever again”. And we should also remember that this isn’t entirely our fault. Social media was engineered to keep us scrolling, AND the choice is ours. We’re not weak for having the itch; it was installed in us. And we’re also not totally helpless to answer it; we’re still able to turn the music off.
We can follow Jesus’s example of going off to quiet places to pray. Even when crowds demanded to see Him, Jesus sought the quiet (Luke 5:16).
Stillness isn’t a productivity hack or merit badge. It’s the rhythm that Jesus kept.
So, how do we do this practically?
Take baby-steps. The next drive, turn off the music for five minutes. Not forever. Tolerate the quiet like strengthening a weak muscle.
Don’t reach for the feed the second you wake up. Some clinicians actually suggest a “low-dopamine morning” to let cortisol and morning light set your rhythm. Spend two minutes in prayer or silence instead of giving those minutes to your FYP.
And sitting in silence doesn’t ALWAYS mean God will speak to you. Sometimes we just sit. That counts too. We’re not holier for driving without music on. It’s about hearing what we’ve been missing, not passing a test.
Silence is receiving, not earning.
Starting With Three Minutes
On the drive home from work that day, I forced myself to turn my music off, just for a few minutes. I’d be lying if I said I heard God speak amazing revelations to me in the ensuing silence. Instead, I sat in discomfort for a little while.
Three minutes to be exact. But three minutes is more than zero, and I’m still learning.
We can’t sit in silence anymore. But maybe we can learn. Even if it’s three minutes at a time.
