Exploring the Joys and Pitfalls of Online Connection: Chris Stedman

Break out a pen and notebook, because today on For the Love, we’re going back to school with writer and professor Chris Stedman, our next guest in the For the Love of Reconnecting series. A former chaplain at Harvard and founding director of the Yale Humanist Community, Chris just wrote a fascinating book called IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives. He’s a millennial who grew up fluent in the digital world but didn’t have a smartphone that tethered him to the internet until after his formative years, when a post he wrote went viral and steered him toward building a platform online. The internet of today is definitely not the one Chris grew up with—it’s no longer something we log in and out of. Chris and Jen talk about the beauty of finding and building community online and expanding our circles of belonging, but also why it’s so important to disconnect from tech every once in a while, because we discover things about ourselves in the silence of retreat that we may not see otherwise. And while sometimes the internet can seem like a place teeming with chaos, Chris reminds us that we have the power to choose how *we* engage with technology, that we control our devices—not the other way around. * * * Thank you to our sponsors!   Noom | Check out how to stay on a healthy track at https://noom.com/forthelove Jen Hatmaker Book Club | Join the sisterhood today! https://jenhatmakerbookclub.com  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker and her longtime friend, Amy Hardin, have arrived in the middle years — and they couldn’t be happier about it.  Each has navigated the ins and outs of life — from careers, to parenting, marriage (and, for Jen, divorce), spiritual evolution, and the joys of being hardcore Gen Xers. With each weekly episode, Jen and Amy serve as our “everywoman” guides to all the seasons — past, present, and future — as they walk excitedly and tenaciously into the second half of life. While Jen and Amy have plenty of wisdom to share — and some pretty hilarious stories, too — they don’t claim to know it all. That's why they invite some of the most interesting and accomplished guests to the podcast, bringing insight, expertise, and understanding to the most relevant topics of our time. From Jen and Amy’s compelling conversations with guests to their witty banter (and the occasional eye-rolls at the absurdities of life), they’re here reassure you that you’re not alone in this game of life.  It’s “For the Love” of all that is good, justified, exasperating, exhilarating, real, fun — and so much more.