EP 44 How to Balance Social Media with Friends

After a decade of gathering women together for prayer, we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is iRefresh. Welcome to iRefresh, where we empower ordinary women to do extraordinary things through the power of God's word and prayer. And let me tell you, I have some ordinary women with me today, but I think they're extraordinary. And Patty Gerstenberger, I'm Carrie Kittinger. We have known each other for over 30 years. A long time. A long time. And we have some amazing college students with us today. And I'm so pleased that we have Hannah Kunze, and we have Grace Matthews, and we have Elise Shea. And so what an honor to have you ladies with us tonight. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I love that you're friends and Carrie Kitty here and I have been friends for, I think, over 30 years. Yes. And the fun thing is that we met in college as well and so I know that that's, yeah, a few of you have known each other since kindergarten I hear, but you're all really good friends in college right now which is so fun. But you know, things are a little different than 30 years ago when we were in college. So we thought maybe we would just ask you all a few questions to get to know what it's like being in college in 2020. So I'm going to start here and I want you girls to just, you know, let me know makeup or no makeup when you're in class. No makeup for me. I choose makeup. Very little makeup. Okay. So you guys are great. So no makeup, yes makeup, and very little makeup. That's great. All right. How about favorite late night snack? Chocolate. Chocolate. I love Reese's. I love them. Do you guys keep a stash of these things in your rooms? In my freezer. I should eat it. I don't know. I like ice cream. And you can't keep that in the dorms, can you? Yeah, we have freezers. You do have freezers. See, back in the... Yeah, times have changed. That's exactly. Okay. So, you know, maybe getting a little more personal, what's your pet peeve living in the dorms? The community bathrooms. Oh. Oh, yeah. Their struggle. Yeah. It's hard. Are you all in agreement with that, or anybody add anything to the pet peeve? Um... Another one might be when Elise and I are having fun in our room and people tell us to be quiet. I agree with that. All the noise and the giggling. Yeah. That's really funny. Hey, come on. We're a dorm. If you have any choice for spring break, mountains or beach? Beach. Mountains. Beach. Aw. You guys are a great combination. The best would be going somewhere where there's mountains and beach, right? Yeah. Next spring break. Y'all will have to plan that for sure. Okay, so, you know, anybody have any questions for us? We do have some questions for you guys. We're more than twice their age. Oh, exactly. So do you guys prefer pants or a dress? Oh, Lord. I think I have two dresses in my closet. I have two pants. Winter pants for sure. The dead of summer here, a sundress. You do wear sundresses. I do. What does a girls night out look for you guys? Oh my goodness, it's probably more like girls night in. Yeah. Or we do it during the day because we're not a Sam Tudler. Yes, absolutely. So I know, for me, just like very casual, you know. So I think just like connection. You know, you have small coffee and leggings. Oh yes. You know, just having a great conversation. Last one, cookies or cupcakes? Oh, for sure cookies. I am. And homemade. So, yes. Are chips and salsa not an option? I love baking, but I don't necessarily... I don't really have a sweet tooth. So we're a good pair because, yeah, get the salty and I'll do the sweet and there we go. So, well, it's so interesting just the differences, but yet I think as far as just being women, our hearts are the same, right? And so as we were talking to you all earlier, really time management is a big deal, and especially in college, but I will say it really doesn't get, I mean, it's going to be a skill you'll have to have the rest of your life. And I always think with your generation, and this is me included now, but to be in college with social media and time management, I mean, those are really polar opposites, right? And even going from the transition from being in your home to being in college where, you know, not that we monitor our kids. Right. That's a huge transition of having to manage that yourselves. How have you all navigated that? Well, I find myself like, you know, three hours, four hours on it and I was like, well that's way too much time, you know, and so I've really had to like, tilt back and like make sure I'm not on it much because it takes away from like, what I do during the day and like my focus and being proactive with the Lord in the day. So it's very, it's like a vortex, you know. It is because if I spend that much time on whether it's my phone or my computer, then that means that I'm not spending time on something else. Right. Or even just like more just hanging with a friend face to face, right? Instead of screen to face. And so I was just amazed that you all were talking earlier that you even have had times that you've held each other accountable. I mean, wow, I am super impressed with that. Probably not. I know. So exactly. So tell us how that looks. Go ahead. So, Elise and I, we're roommates, and we decided there's settings on Apple phones that you can set limits for your app. So, any app, whether it's social media or even texting. So, we set an app limit for 30... 30 minutes for a few of our social media accounts and we set passwords. So she has my password and I have hers, so we have to ask permission if we want more than that. And I think it's been really good that we're just able to limit our time and use it to dive in the word or study, which is what I think everyone needs. So what have you found the benefit, just personally, with you implementing that? Yeah, it definitely makes us more aware of how much time we're spending instead of just getting on and mindlessly scrolling. And I think that it's given us more time to do more productive things like homework Which makes you happy to go to sleeping and hanging out with friends, building that community, and also just spending more time in the Word and just more time with God. Okay, so true confessions with you all having each other, holding each other accountable and knowing each other's password, or I guess not knowing, you've got a password for her. So when you've asked permission, have you ever said no? Yeah. There was one time she's like, can I just like, can you just put it in? I'm like, no, I'm just not gonna. But then there was another time when she asked me to put it in, she's like, now you have to put it in because you were on my Instagram today. So I'm like, oh, you're right. So I put it in. I'm like, I took away some of your time. So we do get a little technical sometimes. But that's incredible. Yeah. So even as a college student, what have you found the impacts of social media on you personally? I feel like there's a lot of positive, there's some positive, some negative effects. And we want to say that. Right. Absolutely. It's not a bad thing. thing yeah yeah I'd say some negative things could be like if I'm on it too much and I'm just mindlessly scrolling, I can see like comparison. Right. That's a big thing. Losing sleep and sometimes it can even cause like some anxiety or some emotional changes. I've found so I've just had to notice whenever that's happening and just turn it off and stop and realize it's not beneficial for me. Yeah, and I felt like it was like a kind of an escape from reality. Right. And so it was like, oh, I won't have to do that. I won't have to go work out. I won't have to eat right because I'm just going to watch this movie or something or be on social media and watch a video on there or something. Right. And so it just like took away from like personal relationships and kind of things like that. But like on the positive side of things, like, you know you can like say something happy birthday to someone or see how connect with someone on there and be like yeah how's life going or something like that so yeah yeah i have a friend who's studying abroad and so being able to just see her pictures and like see her updates because it's so hard to facetime her with the time right and so just like staying connected in that way i think it's really a positive thing but there are also some negative things to it. I wanted to bounce off what Grace said. I haven't thought about this but I do use it sometimes as a distraction. Like if I'm feeling sad or lonely and I just don't want to feel how I'm feeling instead of reading the Bible or like opening a book that could help me feel better, I notice that I'll open up Instagram and just scroll and scroll, not even realize. And even like calling a friend. Right? Yeah. Or text me. I guess you guys don't call. Right. Sometimes. So even with the... Your moms call you. Yes. Your mom calls, answer. Take it up. Yes. So even with your connection with other friends at school, you know, how do you even navigate, you know, wanting to connect with somebody, but they are on their phone all the time. And I've been guilty of that. I'm not saying anything. Yeah. It's something that... You know, you all have talked about that, you know, it's a struggle. It's a struggle for, you know, even within our own family and friends. So, I think it's just important to be open and honest and as long as you're trying to help them. Yeah. Just having those honest conversations and And maybe like go out of your way to make plans with them and see if they'll accept that and be like, okay, we'll go do this and lock our phones as much. Absolutely. That's a good idea. Well, I think sometimes too, just getting outside and I mean... I find that when I'm on my phone the most is when I'm traveling or when I'm in a doctor's. I just have way too much free time when you just can't go anywhere. But going outside or doing fun things, I'm like, wow, I've barely been on my phone today. So it just seems like there's the whole fear of missing out. But I was thinking when we're actually trying to see what everybody else is doing, we're missing out on... Other things. Other things, exactly. So we feel like we're missing out on what they're doing, but yet what's happening is we're missing out on what we could be doing with somebody else. So is there the FOMO going on ever with you all? Yes. Always. In college, I mean, there's always things to do, people going out, and it's always like, I want to go even though I should be sleeping right now or I have something to do but I'm going to go anyway because I don't want to miss out. Yeah. Yeah. Or the struggle of seeing that your friends are hanging out or going to studying without you and you're like, where's my invitation? Yeah. But just understanding that you can celebrate for them and that they're having fun and that your time will come. Right. Next time. Right. Yeah. So I mean really when we were in college, I mean you had a phone that was plugged into the wall with what we called an answering machine. So I don't know. And you really, I mean it was like you just actually had to see people as you were walking to class and connect and go to lunch or dinner. But you just, you know, we didn't have that same like, hey this phone's in my pocket and I can at any time. Do you ever check where people are? On the Find Me. Yes. Did you find my friends? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. It's so funny because our kids don't like it when we do that, but they do it with all of their friends. Oh, yeah. Why am I different? Absolutely. It's really handy. Some people think it's weird, but, like, it shows you the map of ORU. So if you want to go eat in the cafeteria... And you're like, well, I don't really want to go alone. Let me see if you can actually see. That is awesome. So I zoom in and I see who's in the cafeteria. And I'm like, oh, some of my friends are there, so I'll go. That's awesome. Yeah, I use it quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so talking about the phones then, so here we've kind of talked about maybe the distractions. What are some things, some apps that you have on your phone that help maybe with productivity or with devotional type things or whatever? What are some things that you all have found that are very helpful on your phone? So I just got the app. It was actually a couple days ago, so it's very recent. It's called... Read Scripture. Ooh. I hope that's the name. And it tells you an overview of the book that you're going to read. Okay. So I was in Genesis, obviously, because I just started. And so it gave me a video overview of what that book was about and what to expect. And then it has a reading plan. of what to read and I've read Genesis so many times. Right. And just watching that and then reading it really got me like into the word even deeper and more. And so that's something I started and I really want to try to continue. And so, yeah. That's awesome. We will put that in the show notes. So if it's a different, say it again. Read scripture. Okay, so if it's different, we'll put it in the show notes. But all right, awesome, awesome. Anybody else? Yeah. I don't have anything like that, but that would be really cool to try out. Yeah. I have, I forgot the name of the app that I have, but it's a popular app. But it would give me a notification every day of like a little snippet that I can remember throughout the day. And then it has a devotional that went with it. And I really, really enjoyed that. That's awesome. Okay, what about keeping a calendar on your phone for time management? Anybody do that? Oh, 100%. Oh, yes. Okay. I use my phone calendar to organize my entire life. And my to-do list and my notes. Yes. That's how I have like reminders on that, so it's kind of similar to the same. Yeah, that's how I stay organized. What do you feel like is the biggest distraction with time management? Maybe making like, wondering like, what are my priorities? Like, does this go above that? You know, or can I get this done that amount of time? So it just depends on what you put over something else. Yeah. We used to keep like the day timer type things. So you guys now have that in your phone. And so I mean, it really, as much as we want to say the phone can be a distraction, there are a lot of wonderful tools that it can give as well. Absolutely. Well, you girls are so much further ahead than us. We were at that age. Patty was shooting water balloons out of the top story window. That's true. Are we really going to tell a story? Sorry about that. That's a good idea. I'm sure you guys have nothing to share, but we would love to hear maybe a few takeaways or a few giveaways. Not giveaways. A few things. Yeah, exactly. Do you all have any giveaways for us? Anyways, is there anything that you could leave us with today, leave our audience with today that are listening in, that are watching that would be a takeaway for us? For a college student or honestly you guys have taught us some new things Anybody have something one thing for me. We've been going to like a young adults group and and we've been going to chapel at ORU, and there have been multiple messages that bring up social media, and so we felt convicted about the amount of time that we spent on it. And so through that, we decided to be accountability partners. That's a big thing that I think really helped me because I would spend time on social media and I would just be like, oh, I need to not spend as much time on social media. And I wouldn't be, doing a good job just because I was alone and I was doing it by myself. But then whenever I brought my friends on, I'd be like, hey, let's delete the app for a month all together and do it. Or let's do time limits and you can keep me accountable. That really helped me. And so just like, being vulnerable with friends and opening up so that they can help you and walk alongside you. Oh, that's really good. So even as a mom question, because I know we have a lot of people who have kids, without us being a helicopter parent, and really wanting to even model what good time management would be on our phone as well, like what would you say to the moms out there? Do you ever catch your mom spending too much time on the phone? I do. Oh, wait. She made me film that. It's the balance of, you know, I remember my youngest son, Brady, you know, I was asking him, you know, how much screen time? And he said, well, how much screen time have you used? And I realized, you know, you can take a look and look on the battery and find out exactly, you know, how much time. So, you know, he was very much, well, I'll take mine out with your phone and, you know. Thankfully, everything was fine, but we want to have that open relationship with our kids where I want to encourage without feeling like I'm being the hall monitor. Right. And it's meant out of love, but I think sometimes as a mom I come across as condemning or judgmental, and that's not my heart, but I am concerned. Right. Not every day, but how do you have that conversation with those who are concerned about you and care, and it's not if I ask you not to, well, you don't trust me, and... I've got this and you know, how, how, you know, what would you say to a mom who, how do you have that relationship where you can ask without, you know, and obviously you have to have a relationship, but for it to come across as, um, loving and not as... Not as helicopter parenting. Right. One thing I think of could be to do it together. So, looking at your screen time, looking at his screen time. and just say how about we do this together let's limit it to this and this out like this amount of hours per day I think we can do it together and if we feel like we want to get on our phones we can go do a fun activity outside we can go do some craft together yeah or just play Isn't life better together? I mean, really good. Yeah, it is. So even, I think, the accountability, the, I mean, working out, I mean, whatever, I mean, studying together, I mean, those are the things, you're right. It is, instead of it being like, hey, you need to deal with this all by yourself. Yeah. And it's just that whole group effort is just, it's more fun and, And it's also a little more convicting, right? Because you go, oh, I know that Hannah's going to ask me. And so I want to be able to answer honestly. And so, hey, let's be honest as well. I mean, when you have maybe confessed, gee, I've spent too much time. I mean, what would be your advice to somebody who's struggling that comes to you? I think one of the big things I would ask them is, why? Do you know why you're spending this much time on it? to find the root of why you're doing it, because I think that would help them understand, like, oh, maybe this isn't very healthy to be doing this if I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. That's good. If you can get to the root of why you're doing it, then you can just end it. Yeah, and fix it. It's a lot easier. That's good. Self-awareness. Yeah. Absolutely. That's very good, which applies to all of us. Yes. Definitely. That's really good. I mean, I think this will be a conversation that we could just keep going on and really just learning new things. There's always new apps coming out, right? There's always going to be something that can either help us with time management or can steal our time. And so, but it has been so fun to get to know you ladies and to talk about this. And I know that Patty and I have gleaned things. And so we just really appreciate you gals so very much. Thank you. Yes. So we would love for you all to connect with us more on iRefresh. And so subscribe, whether you're listening to the podcast or whether you're watching on YouTube, we would love for you to subscribe and to just communicate with us more at iRefresh.net. And we want to hear from you. Maybe there's some tips that you have for us. And be sure to check out those show notes for the exact names of the apps. And so thank you very much. And please, Go and change your world.