"When Screens Become Our Refuge and Our Ruin"

CHRISTIAN REFLECTION: "The Cocoon Generation: When Screens Become Our Refuge and Our Ruin"

Somewhere between COVID lockdowns and our current digital obsession, something quiet — and honestly heartbreaking — happened to us. People didn’t just retreat into their homes… they retreated into themselves. And now we’re living in a world where isolation feels normal, and authentic connection feels almost inconvenient.

And here’s the part that ought to make us pause:
- People are now saying online what they’d never say face-to-face. - - They will expose the darkest corners of their soul on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, or wherever the algorithm will listen — but won’t whisper those same struggles to a friend, a pastor, or someone sitting beside them at church.

Screens have become the new “safe space,” where folks feel:
invisible yet expressive, bold but not accountable. connected but still painfully alone.

We’re witnessing a generation that is overexposed and under-known.
AI “relationships,” parasocial connections, late-night confessionals to strangers online… it all looks like community, but it’s hollow at the center. It offers comfort without commitment, companionship without covenant, and conversation without consequence.

And social media?

Well, it’s given us a stage with no pastor, no elder, no friend to say, “Hey now… that’s not who you are.”

People blast anger in comment sections, bare their souls to total strangers, and perform their pain for an audience that scrolls past ten seconds later. Meanwhile the same people struggle to make eye contact at the grocery store.

We’re oversharing online and under-living in real life.

But God didn’t design us for digital echoes.
- He designed us for community — messy, inconvenient, face-to-face, heart-to-heart community.
- He designed us for people who know our names, not just our usernames.
- For conversations that involve eyes, not emojis.
- For relationships that cost something, not algorithms that simulate affection.

The danger of the cocoon is this: You can get so comfortable inside it, you forget how to be human outside it.

And maybe it’s time — lovingly, honestly — to remind folks that screens can assist your life, but they can’t live it for you. AI can imitate a voice, but it can’t love you.

Social media can broadcast your thoughts, but it can’t heal your heart. The comments section can listen, but it can’t walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death.

Only God can do that.

And only real people — His people — can walk beside you as He does.
Genesis 2:18 — “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

Walk in faith, rest in grace, and trust the One who walks beside you.

In His love and grace,

ray mileur

"Helping believers walk closer to Jesus, one day at a time."
www.raymileurministries.com