Book Review: Will You Be My Facebook Friend? by Tim Chester

Social media has been one of the biggest trend for the last few years. It is amazing how sites like MySpace started the whole thing. Today the leading social media site is Facebook, which I am on and I am sure some of you as well. There are now more than 500 million people that access Facebook daily with 200 million accessing their site through some form of mobile device.

In Tim Chester's latest book, Will You Be My Facebook Friend?, it addresses the benefits and dangers of Facebook as well as other social media outlets like Twitter and Google Plus. Chester does list the benefits of social media which getting Jesus to countries that no one else can even get in due to it being a restricted country. Social media is also good to meet people, plan activities, and ability to arrange to meet people face to face when they are in the same city.

While there are benefits of social media, there is also some dangers. Chester is not coming across as an anti-technology guy, but does write, "Technology is good. But it readily gets perverted by our sin, and used for selfish ends." The dangers with social media or any technology is that we spend more time on it than we do with interpersonal relationships. Also when students suffer from a lack of sleep because they are tweeting, texting, or on Facebook.

Chester concludes his book by saying:

I want to reiterate that for many people, using Facebook is not a problem. For many it is all blessing.

But there are dangers in social networking. And to those who face those dangers, the gospel provides a better and richer alternative.

Facebook is the place where I show my face or image...The Gospel is the place where God turns 'his face towards us' (Num. 6:26). It is the place where he recreates us in his image and recreates his world through his words.

This book is only 48 pages long yet it provides great truth on the Gospel relating to the area of social media.

Thanks 10 Publishing for letting me review this book.