Daryl Hunter – Hubby, Daddy, Mentor, Friend

Hi friends. It’s time for another post outside of my usual “tech space” conversation. If this isn’t interesting you, feel free to move along.

My family attends Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. We’ve been here 4+ years after navigating through some challenging life circumstances and Church changes. As I engaged more and more at Church and looked for a place to dive in, I met Katherine. She’s our Middle School (Youth 6/8) Pastor. I serve on her team as a coach which is basically an “extension” of her leadership with some of the guys leaders in Middle School. It’s pretty cool place to be – I mean – I get to help teach, corral kids, dunk on them at 9-square, and when I’m lucky, I get to bring a deck of Pokemon cards for a TCG battle. Yup. It’s a cool place to be.

We have a leadership meeting coming up and through some interesting hallway conversations, Katherine asked me to add some of my perspective around things like Social Media and Technology. That’s why I’m writing this. Why me? I’m a leader. I’m a parent. I work in tech and have some expertise on the behind-the-scenes world here. I have an opinion and some experience with my own family. I also have spent a lot of time talking with students (including my own kids) and my wife (who is way smarter than me) has spent a lot of focus on this subject and sometimes I actually listen to her – sometimes 😉 I’ll share this post at our leadership training so I don’t have to create slides or handouts. So, it’s a two-fer! I get to share my heart and use this to share with others :). Let’s go!

Pressure
If you spend any time around middle or high school students today, you’ll notice something quickly: they are living in more worlds than we ever did. Not just school, home, and church—but TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Discord, group chats, private stories, and sometimes anonymous online spaces. Each world has its own expectations, its own language, and its own social rules. And in each of them, students often feel pressure to show a different version of themselves.

Most of the students we serve don’t have just one identity—they have several.

• The “types” of accounts go by different names: spam, opp, alt, private, public, “finsta” – our students know their audience and they give their audience “a version” of themselves.
• On Instagram, they post the “put together” highlights. It’s about the aesthetic.
• On TikTok, they lean into trends or humor. Gone viral? You’ve made it!
• On Snapchat, they’re casual, unfiltered, and real-time.
• On Discord or gaming communities, they may explore interests they don’t show anyone else.

None of this is inherently bad. Teens have always tried on different versions of themselves while figuring out who they want to become. But what’s different now is the scale and speed and visibility of it all. The pressure to keep each persona alive is constant. And the moment one identity slips into another space—screenshots, shares, rumors—it can feel like their whole world collapses.

This is exhausting for them.

Many students feel fragmented, stretched, and unsure which version is the “real” one.

Does this mean *all* students have multiple accounts, and multiple “identities” and “versions” of themselves? Of course not. But, it’s more common than you think. Take time to ask your students, or if you dare, your children. You may be surprised. Some of my fellow leaders at Church were – and now we are here! 🙂

How is this different than us?
Generational language isn’t perfect, but it does give us a helpful lens.

• Gen X (me) and Millennials
  • We grew up with mostly in-person identity shaping. Maybe AIM or Myspace came along later, but it wasn’t foundational. Your identity was still rooted in your local world—your street, your school, your church.
• Gen Z & Gen Alpha (our students today)
  • They’re being formed by global influence from childhood. Their values are shaped not just by parents and teachers but by algorithms—by what they see, what trends, what goes viral, and what earns attention. They don’t “go online.” They are online.
  • For them, the question isn’t: “How do I stay true to myself at school?”
  • It’s: “How do I stay true to myself when every platform expects something different from me—and every platform is watching?”
  • That’s a far more complex question.

But DW, what about the Bible?
When I was a teenager – and maybe you too – youth group conversations often centered around the idea of being “in the world, but not of the world.” That’s a nice phrase I mean – it’s straight from Jesus in John 17. I’m not discounting it because the Bible is true. But, teenagers are complicated 🙂 This phrase was about holding onto your identity and convictions even when you were surrounded by influences that wanted to shape you differently. Back then, “the world” was mostly physical. It was the hallway at school, the Friday night hangout, or the team locker room.

Today, “the world” is in their pocket 24/7—buzzing, notifying, pulling, rewarding, comparing, and shaping them constantly. And that shift has changed everything.

Another word for that 24/7 shift might be summed up with “anxiety” or “anxiousness.” I’m not diagnosing your students. Or your children. Or yourselves. But, an anxious heart and mind has a hard time finding the right signal in all the noise. My niece Abbey read my first draft of this and suggested I add some additional Scripture on this. I think that’s smart. This isn’t just my opinion – we have God’s story right in front of us, so, let’s find a few references you should share (or memorize!) that might help.

• Philippians 4:6-7 says “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” – but that’s not all – “And the peace of God, which surpasses all undersanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
  • This may be the most quoted Scripture about anxiety. Paul gives us a clear playbook we can follow 1) pray, 2) be thanksful, 3) trust God – and THEN – God responds with supernatural peace, not just emotional soothing.
• 1 Peter 5:7 says “…casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you!”
  • Peter is direct here: God wants your worries. Not to shame you or judge you but because He genuinely cares. This verse helps reframe anxiety from something carried alone to something shared wtih God. He asks you to. And you should.
• Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God.”
  • This is easy to memorize! This verse calls for a pause. “Be still” literally means stop striving, stop spiraling, stop trying to control everything – the badges, the likes, the notifications, the aesthetic, keeping the story straight. Stop it. God is in charge. See also 1 Peter 5:7 above!

What Student Leaders Need to Know
As ministry leaders, mentors, and small group shepherds, here are the five most important things we need to understand:

• Their Identity feels fragmented
  • Students are holding multiple versions of themselves together – all at once.
• Social Media is discipling them
  • Algorithms reward performance, not character. They shape what “matters.”
• The pressure never stops. ever.
  • There is no “break” from influence. The world comes home with them. It lives in their pocket.
• Authenticity feels risky
  • Being their whole self in any environment feels vulnerable.
• Belonging drives behavior
  • Students will compromise identity to stay connected if they don’t feel safe.

So how do we lead them? Not by lecturing. Not by running from culture. And certainly not by presenting we fully understand their world – because we don’t. We lead by modeling a different way.

• Model consistency
  • Be the same person online, in the hallway, and in the small group room. Students notice integrity more than instruction.
• Create safe spaces
  • Make small groups environments where they don’t feel the pressure to perform.
• Teach digitial wisdom
  • Not “don’t use social media,” but how to use it with discernment and intention.
• Affirm identity beyond performance
  • Call out courage, kindness, growth – not popularity or aesthetics.
• Show curiousity, not fear
  • Learn the apps. Ask questions. Enter their world with them, not from above them.

Students don’t need us to be social media experts. They need us to be trusthworthy guides. We need to constantly reinforce to students that our identity is rooted in something deeper than likes or followers.

What Parents Need to Know
Parents today face challenges no previous generation of parents ever faced. Yes yes, every generation says that. And they are right. So, don’t nit-pick. It’s different. Here are the big things parents need to understand (obligatory Fresh Prince reference):

• Social media is a primary influencer
  • It shapes values often more than home or school. This doesn’t let you off the hook, but, you need to be aware. Lean in. Dig in. Skew your influence higher 🙂
• Students curate several personas
  • This fragmentation can create very real mental and emotional strain. They are “on” 24/7 and they are completely exhausted. Have you ever told multiple versions of the same story? How do you keep them all straight?
• Comparison is unavoidable
  • Their feeds are full of edited, filtered, and perfect “reality” that are anything but real.
• Boundaries aren’t control – they’re protection
  • Kids need help shaping healthy habits. And, mirror time, we probably do too.
• Faith often feels offline
  • Students struggle to bring their beliefs into digital spaces

Parents can support students by showing genuine interest, modeling healthy tech habits, establishing collaborative boundaries, and having open, judgment-free conversations.

Helping Students Live as One Whole Person
Are you ready? This is the TLDR. The heart of this entire conversation comes down to one truth:

Students thrive when they feel free to be the same person online, at school, at home, and at Church. Wholeness. God created us as a single – whole – person. Help the students find themselves!

Our call as leaders and parents is to create environments where they feel safe enough, secure enough, and loved enough to drop the performance and embrace authenticity.

Because ultimately, we’re not asking them to juggle personas—we’re inviting them to discover who they truly are and to live that identity with consistency and confidence.