The Inevitable Rabbit Hole: Countering Satan’s Impact on Young People Through Social Media
by Christian Standard | 3 July, 2025
By Ricky Altmiller
“Social media. It’s just a tool, right? It is not bad in and of itself. The issue is how you use it.” But what if social media and cultural influences are having a greater impact than we realize?
We have all been there. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, and down the inevitable rabbit hole we go. We fall into a digital information and social spiral that takes us places we never thought we would go, landing in a foreign metaverse. We spend vast amounts of time on clicks, videos, articles, and reels, ending up in an unknown realm. Everything looks the same but feels very different. Sometimes we come out feeling discombobulated and other times we come out feeling empowered and enlightened. Most Generation Z teens (born between 1999 and 2015), many of whom are in middle school and high school, take this journey multiple times a day.
The Battle of the Mind
The primary battle zone resides in the mind. This makes sense, as the mind is the communicator and controller of all aspects of our bodies. Control the mind, control the body. In Genesis 3, Satan proposed a thought of doubt or distorted truth. The serpent said, “Did God really say?” Eve confirmed the statement, but Satan replied, “You will not certainly die.” It was at this moment Eve shifted from a foundation of truth to a foundation of a perversion of truth. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened” (Genesis 3:1-7, New International Version).
Is this not the same spiritual war we are facing today? Satan’s conniving ways have not changed. Teens are engulfed in a culture and landscape the Barna Research Group describes as “Digital Babylon.” This is where we find ourselves as we attempt to make disciples of teens who will also make disciples.
When we think of spiritual warfare, the spectrum can run from subtle questioning of truth to the extremes of demonic possession and Satan worship. All are prominent in our culture and world. We need to be prepared to face all fronts. But the broader, more detrimental impact on our teens today is psychological manipulation through social media platforms. Here is where culture, politics, fluidity of truth, pornography, misinformation, greed, and so much more collide.
