The Search for Identity in Digital Spaces

Can you imagine what a day would look like without any digital connection with the outside world? Our everyday lives—especially if we’re part of a generation that’s grown up with the internet—are deeply engaged online. It’s impossible for most of us to think about not having a phone because of the nearly universal adoption of digital technology by everyone, everywhere, all the time.

And why wouldn’t you fold things like a phone and online social connections into your life? At its beginning, social media was created to make life more convenient and communal for people all over the world to connect. Your digital identity is a way for you to express yourself and relate to others in the world. Can’t that be a good thing?

Sadly, social media has not proved itself to be super social. In fact, it’s had an adverse effect on most of its users. It hasn’t really connected us with people—at least not on a deeper, soul-satisfying level— it’s driven us apart instead.

I believe the irony in all this digital “connection” is that we’ve detached from others more than joined others in our desire to plug in and belong. And as a result, you may be experiencing an increasing sense of hurt and solitude as you dive deeper and deeper into your phone in search of a network of belonging that you’ll never be able to find. 

Why? Because you’re looking in the wrong place.

Digital social interaction will never quench your actual thirst for connection because it will always sacrifice community on the altar of convenience. In other words, when given the choice between community and convenience, the algorithm will always pick ease over the complexity of human relationships. In fact, the digital identity you project online may have made you feel less and less like your actual self, and deep down in the truest recesses of your heart, that bothers you.

Bottom line: you know that identity isn’t the real, raw you. You’re creating a “brand” that needs to be nurtured and curated to an ambiguous list of specifications, and if you don’t, your online “community” could abandon you for someone else flashier, prettier, funnier, or more extreme.

We know our digital platforms are volatile and unsteady ground to build our lives on, and that creates a deep sense of insecurity within us.

The hunger for legitimate relationship isn’t being fed through the creation of your digital identity, because the belly of your soul grumbles for something genuine. Investing in digital connection to the neglect of real connection will always leave you feeling lonely. And here’s the thing: social media isn’t necessarily the actual root issue. It’s a crutch—a facade hiding the real needs and problems going on under the surface of our lives. These symptoms of loneliness and isolation that aren’t satisfied by connecting with people online are pointing you somewhere.

Only a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ will satisfy our craving to know and be known—a genuine, life-giving connection with our Father, alongside a godly community where he wants us to thrive. It was our sin that fractured the connection with God in the first place and Jesus is the only one who gives us the opportunity to be meaningfully connected to our Creator. So, the first step is to admit that you need him. And when you come to him with a humble posture of seeking God’s grace, he will always move toward you with overflowing joy, welcome, and comfort. He’ll connect you with himself.

Regardless of where you’re at right now, let me tell you that you were made for meaningful connection and community—starting with God and then branching out to others in his church too. Your desire for connection and community comes from the God who made you “in his own image” (1:27), and it can therefore only be met in God himself. It all starts with him. A deeper understanding of who you are in relation to your heavenly Father begins to heal the deep loneliness you may be experiencing both online and in real life. And sometimes God actually woos people to himself and teaches them about meaningful relationships through other Christians first, making the gospel plausible and a relationship with him a reliable reality.

So even though it can be scary, move toward him, and you’ll find a truly different way of living than what you’ve perhaps settled for in your attempt to connect with others through your digital identity. Move toward him, and you’ll find a more fulfilling and abundant way of life—as Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b).