Social Media Anxiety

I’ve noticed a lot of my friends have been posting lately that they feel like a slave to their feelings after extended exposure to rants, rippings, and constant “bad news” in their social media inboxes. I get that. I’m sure you do too – and we trust that our “friends” will be tactful, or at least polite, when expressing their opinions and reactions to the latest news, but sometimes it doesn’t end up that way. Instead we get more and more discouraged and eventually depressed by all the vitriol and hope-deprived news we see – some real, some not real (how, oh how can we tell?) – as it’s continually fed to us everywhere we look.

A BFF(Blessed Friend Forever) asked me yesterday how I find balance between staying informed and feeling bombarded. A very good question, don’t you think? How can we keep a positive, Christ-honoring spirit while the two-by-four of worldly rotten stuff repreatedly whacks us upside the head?

I’d like to share my answer to that question, which happens to be excerpted from the August 9 reading in my new devotional, Bless Your Heart: Daily Devotions to Warm Your Heart & Feed Your Soul (currently due for release on September 9 but BFFs like you can preorder them on Amazon HERE right now). Here ’tis … I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below:

Breaking the Cycle

By Debora M. Coty, copyright 2025 from Bless Your Heart

“Choose today whom you will serve … as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord”  (Joshua 24:15, NLT).

While I was growing up, my parents always turned on the six o’clock news during dinner. Walter Cronkite ushered us through every bite with horrific images of the Vietnam War and mounting casualty counts that made my stomach churn. No wonder we all had digestive problems. The anxiety often lingered through a restless night.

When I grew up and had children of my own, I vowed not to repeat that toxic cycle. Our dinnertime family rule was no TV, radio, or phones at the table. Instead, we made eye contact with one another and talked about our day. I found this simple step significantly lowered our nighttime anxiety and set a precedent for peace in our household.

Sometimes without realizing it we fall into harmful habits or cycles of behavior that increase anxiety instead of decreasing it. Longtime destructive habits are hard to acknowledge and even harder to break. If we’re not uber-aware of chronic toxic input, anxiety can beome self-perpetating. We may worry about worrying. Increased anxiety over the possibility of having anxiety can bring it on, and you create a viscious cycle. 

Many times we think we have no choice; we can’t change that behavioral pattern that causes anxiety, we’ve done it for too long. No. Not true. Believe that you have a choice – that you don’t have to be controlled by your emotions, or the input that evokes them, even though you might have been bronco-bucked by them for so long you feel helpless about harnessing them.

Listen, my friend, if you find yourself stuck in an anxiety-producing cycle, please seek help. There’s no shame in admitting you can’t break the cycle alone. Remember, God is the Creator of our best selves and He’s got a terrific you in mind. But you must move your pride out of the way, ask Him to provide the help you need, and take the first step.

Today’s verse asserts that you do have choice. Yep. Time to decide. Will you choose to serve your runaway feelings, or the One who created them in their purest form to protect you?