Review: “Who Are You Following?”

Sadie Robertson Huff encourages readers to rethink social media

Jade Lewis|November 10, 2022

Are you happy with the people you follow online? Or do you follow others only because you feel pressured by your peers? This is what author Sadie Robertson Huff gets at in her book “Who Are You Following?” Huff’s new book aims to influence young Christian girls to live their life to the fullest and make sure they are “following” the right people.

Jade Lewis poses with a book titled, “Who are you Following?” By author Sadie Robertson. Lewis has read these author’s books for three years.

This 224-page book was released last February and is Huff’s fourth book. Her three previous titles include “Live,” “ Live Original” and “Live on Purpose,” a devotional book. The main audience she writes for in all of these books is young women struggling in a current relationship with God or wanting to start a relationship. 

“Who Are You Following?” starts with a foreword by Tim and Demi Tebow that helps set up what is to come in the book. The Tebows say that Sadie aims for Jesus in all of her books and her life. Tim and Demi both say that this book will help many people who are struggling with social media.  The foreword made me want to read the book more and was one of my favorite parts of the book.

 The rest of the book focuses on people we follow on all our social media accounts and how that connects to our relationship with Jesus. Sadie put some powerful quotes in her book that made me think about who I was following personally. For example, Huff says, “We need to be more intentional about what we are looking for so we can begin to be more purposeful with  who we are following.” These words spoke to me and were powerful, they made me think about all the people I followed. I was looking for more people of faith posting appropriate and inspirational information to motivate and guide me. I unfollowed almost 100 people on my Instagram who I felt didn’t align with my values, and I felt so much better about myself. 

Sadie’s overall argument is that having a relationship with Jesus is much more important than social media. She talks about how dark social media can be. Sadie personally had to delete Snapchat at one point because it got so toxic and didn’t make her happy. Sadie says, “Protect yourself from messages and images your heart doesn’t need. Ask for wisdom and strength to seek what it does need.” She made me think about whether having social media and some apps are beneficial for me and if I need to see the things that other people are posting on social media.

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The study showed that 90 percent of people in the United States, ages 13-24,  already have Snapchat. More than 10 billion videos on Snapchat are viewed a day! 

Another specific example of the dark side of social media that Huff includes is a study she found by Pew Research Center about how many kids at younger ages are using Snapchat. The study also showed that teens between the ages of 13-18 spend up to 7 hours a day on Snapchat and other social media sites, and over 90 percent of teens are expressing concerns over cyberbullying.  After reading this, I found myself monitoring my use of social media apps and becoming more aware of how much of my day I essentially throw away staring at a phone.  I was more worried about texting and watching videos instead of spending time with my family and with Jesus. I think that having Snapchat made my mental health much worse because I was too worried about who was Snapchatting me and not truly living. As a result, I decided to delete Snapchat, and this is something I think could help many other teenage girls with their mental health and overall happiness.

As a whole, this book made me rethink social media altogether.   It made me rethink how I spend my time.  I would much rather invest my time by spending it living life away from my phone.  I think many girls could benefit from reading this book as I did, and I highly recommend it.  Now put down your phone and go live your best life!