Why are bugs attracted to Street-lamps?

We have all seen bugs swarming a street light, but why do they do that?

For most bugs, their eyesight is not really that good. In order to navigate the world around them, they need a marker. At nighttime, that would be the moon, in daytime, the sun. Keeping that in view helps them fly straight.

But oh--how confusing is the artificial light! They could not actually fly up to the sun or moon, it stays at the same size and angle. They just keep it over their left shoulder, and they fly straight. But the artificial light confuses their navigation, and makes them fly in random circles, rather than in straight lines.

What hope do they have? They can't re-program their instincts, God made them that way. So they flutter around lost all night, under the spell of a light many times brighter than the moon.

Unless its a bug-zapper! What a mean trick--using their own God-given instincts against them! And they have no defense.

As humans, we also have instincts--God given instincts, that are for our good.

But what if, a giant "bug zapper" were able to find and confuse those instincts? What if our natural attractions were hijacked by some technology, and we fluttered around that? Instead of what God intended?

What if, it were dangerous for us?

We are talking, of course, about Social Media.

God created us as social creatures. We were meant to live in family units, which formed larger circles of tribes, or churches. From these we would receive our emotional support, approval, training, and correction, if needed. This is the God-given "nest" for our health and safety. The "tribe" is where we were designed to thrive--God's marvelous design.

But social media has hi-jacked all these God given needs, and re-routed them into something that attracts us, but provides none of the benefits. Instead of helping us grow, and improve, it gives us constant hits from "dopamine approval loops," while slowly draining our life away.

And like a bug swirling a street lamp, we can't break away from it.

In the false reality of digital relationships, you can hide all your faults. You can put forward the best version of yourself, with all the flaws photoshopped out. You can receive the illusion of approval, but none of the corrective nudges that would come from real relationships.

And you can always run back to it, like a baby to a pacifier, if in person relationships start to get uncomfortable.

But--we NEED that discomfort, that is how it is designed to work. It's that discomfort that causes us to make needed changes in our lives, and behavior.

How much energy does a bug expend, in a single night, swirling around a street-lamp? In the morning, he must be exhausted!--and beat up.  And it has done him not one bit of good, he has found no food, done nothing for his real needs.

Social Media causes a similar exhaustion. We were never designed to keep hundreds (or thousands) of friends in our view at all times. We were designed to live in a small family circle, with just a few constant contacts, and larger circles that we enter and exit occasionally. Our internal approval/disapproval sensor operates at a different scale and pace, where there is time and space to improve ourselves.

Social Media surges that sensor, with constant hits of approval/disapproval, with no change in our behavior required. It is sinister, addictive, and leads to depression, confusion, and even suicide.

Have you been a bug swirling the street-lamp of Social Media?  There's a better life for you--much better.

If you ever break away from it, you will feel oh so much better!