So I have a bit of an obsession... Not with selfies, but with analyzing them.
Yes, I would consider myself super interested in the advancing technology in our day- and how it is affecting people and their relationships with each other and with the world in general. I find it a super interesting subject. So when I started considering topics to research for this paper about teen church attendance dropping, it wasn't long until I started considering technology's role in this.
I thought about my teenage church experience and how it seemed to be filled with teens constantly on their phones. I had a flip phone in high school. But most of my friends had smartphones and, being on the outside of the tech world looking in, I noticed a lot of phone use during church, including text messaging, Facebook, Instagram, and... Snapchat.
I honestly got super sick of seeing people make stupid faces at their phones during Sunday School. Later on, I got a smartphone and I fell into the same selfie trap. I was Snapchatting all the time. And I noticed something- I was getting so caught up in the virtual world that I wasn't growing Spiritually. I went to church, but I was so addicted to my phone that I couldn't concentrate on or really learn from the world around me- which leads me to believe that this Selfie World is causing teens to fall away from religion. When we seem to have it good, everyone is liking our posts on Insta, we're everyone's best friend on Snap, and we virtually have the world at our fingertips, who honestly would want to give religion a second thought?
I know that when I had my smartphone, I thought the Gospel was good, but I wasn't about to miss out on something "important" on my phone just to pay attention in church or read my scriptures.
Is this what is causing this so-called Teenage Apostasy?
