Is Social Media Affecting My Body Image?

Title: Is Social Media Affecting My Body Image?

Podcast Date: July 15, 2025

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Description

 Is all that time on Instagram, TikTock or YouTube affecting your body image? Studies say, definitely. So, why do we still do it? Today, Heather interviews Allie Marie Smith, an author, podcast host, and director of an organization called Wonderfully Made. Allie has a brand new book out on the topic of social media and what she found may surprise or scare you. Today, Heather and Allie talk about the challenges that social media poses to our identity and the way we view ourselves. Allie encourages women to pay careful attention to how social media is affecting them and ask good questions about its usefulness in their lives.

Learn more about Allie Marie Smith here: https://alliemariesmith.com

Learn about Allie's brand-new book, Social Media Reset here: https://amzn.to/4382nX1

(Amazon affiliate link)

Learn more about Compared to Who? here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Transcript

Heather Creekmore [00:00:02]:
Life Audio.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:04]:
Hey friends, Heather Creekmore here. Thanks for listening to the Compare to podcast today. Today my guest is Ali Marie Smith from the wonderfully Made organization. She's an author. She's got a brand new book out about social media questioning how much time we should be spending on it. Should we even be on it? And so today Allie is here to help answer today's question, which is, is social media affecting my body image? Okay, you're probably giggling a little because you know the answer. But friends, just because we know the answer doesn't mean we necessarily take action on the answer. So I hope you'll give today's episode a listen, be encouraged, be challenged, maybe be motivated to make a change.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:50]:
Glad you're here today. Hey, if you're brand new to the show, go check out improvebodyimage.com you can find out on all about what we do here at Compared to who. You can find old podcast episodes to carry you through the whole summer. You can find blog posts, you can find out about my books. You can find out about the 40 day journey we have that'll start again in the fall. Friend, we've got resources to help you. If you are a woman who struggles with body image, appearance, all the things you are in the right place. And we're so glad you're here.

Allie Marie Smith [00:01:20]:
Hey, thanks for listening today. Let's get to today's show.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:28]:
Foreign.

Allie Marie Smith [00:01:34]:
Welcome to the Compare to podcast.

Allie Marie Smith [00:01:37]:
Thank you, Heather. It's an honor to be here.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:39]:
Glad to have you back. I'm hoping today, you know, we're doing this question series and I've gotten a lot of great questions. And the question today that you're going to help me tackle is does social media really impact body image? And I know that probably everyone's like, well, of course. But I'm hoping today that in our conversation we can go a little deeper. And actually, you know, I think this needs to be exposed and I know you're a firm believer in that as well. I mean, we kind of maybe fool ourselves into thinking it doesn't matter that much. But Ally, it matters. Doesn't.

Allie Marie Smith [00:02:23]:
Absolutely matters. Heather, before we dive into answering that question, does social media affect our body image? I would like to take us back a little bit and look at social media from a perspective on what it is doing to our soul. Not just our body image, but what it is doing to our soul souls. We all know by now it is affecting us. It is increasing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, poor body image. That is not new information. The question is, what are we going to do about it and what is it doing to our souls? Because the spiritual ramifications are so serious. And so first I want to say social media has no morality.

Allie Marie Smith [00:03:15]:
It is like money. It is about how we use can be used for good and it can be used for harm. It has new morality. It is about how much time we spend on it, what we look at and share and our motivations behind using it. I want to put this into perspective for your listeners. Every second we spend on social media matters. Seconds become minutes, become hours, become days, become years of our lives. If you were to spend one hour a day, this can come out to three years of your life spent scrolling in a pixelated virtual world.

Allie Marie Smith [00:04:03]:
God did not create us to live in. Two to four hours can come out to six to eight years. Four or more hours spent scrolling on your phone a day can come out to 11 years of your life on social media. At the end of our lives, we will stand before God and have to give an account for how we spent our lives. Our one, our only, our precious, irreplaceable, fleeting lives no one else but us can live. This is more than body image. This is more than eating disorders. This is more than self image.

Allie Marie Smith [00:04:44]:
This is about our purpose and glorifying God with every single borrowed breath we have been given. So friends, as you're listening, I want to encourage you there is no shame here, okay? Social media is designed to be addictive. They hired human behavioral scientists to prey upon human psychology, our God given desire to be liked, seen and known. In a sense you are a victim here. Addictions take over our lives and they interfere with the beautiful, amazing life Jesus has come to give us. Okay, so I want to start from the spiritual ramifications. And so listener, I want to encourage you how ask yourself, how much time am I spending a day on social media? In. In my book Social Media Reset, I have a formula in the back.

Allie Marie Smith [00:05:43]:
You can put in your average daily time over the number of years and find out exactly how many years you're on set. So friend, I want to encourage you, how much time are you spending on social media? How do you feel in your heart, in your mind, in your soul? How do you feel about your body when you put down and you log off that app, when you're scrolling through the lives of other women, how do you feel? I don't think your listeners or you need me to answer the question, is social media hurting our body image? They know that answer and if it's not affecting them, I mean good for you. That's amazing, but they're likely. I don't know why they're listening to their. Your podcast if it doesn't affect.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:36]:
Okay, good point. So.

Allie Marie Smith [00:06:39]:
So, friends, I care so deeply about you. God did not have to create you. He chose you before the foundations of the world. He loved you into existence. You are fearfully, love, lovingly, wonderfully made in his image for so much more than this world, than social media offers you. And I just want you to know I care about you. And I personally was so affected by social media, became an addiction in my life. It left me feeling bummed out, anxious, bad about my body.

Allie Marie Smith [00:07:11]:
And when I found out I was on. On set to spend six years of my life, I couldn't believe it. And I decided being engrossed and envious with the lives of others was an insult to the God who gave me mine.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:25]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's good. You know, different angle on this is not just scrolling. Like, what I recognized a couple years ago and, and really the, the passage that God convicted me with was the not causing my brother to stumble passage. But I, I realized, oh, well, let me, let me put it like this. I had to check my heart in why I was posting things, right? Like, am I posting this? What, for your applause? For your. Like, for you to, I don't know, maybe be envious of me, right? Like, for you to think that I'm doing well. And that really, like, slowed me down even from posting things, like, you know, just creating this.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:16]:
And I don't, you know, I don't. I don't feel like I had devious intentions, but I think we do just get caught up in. You create a narrative of your life and you want everyone to see your life. And of course, it's your curated life. Right?

Allie Marie Smith [00:08:30]:
But.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:30]:
But we just get sucked into it. So, like 100 agree. Like this scrolling's harmful. But I think we also have to ask, like, what are we posting and why? Right. As a. As a sole question.

Allie Marie Smith [00:08:43]:
Right, right. Absolutely. And that is an important question to ask, Heather. How do we want to spend our lives? How do we want to spend the lives God gave us? What do we want our legacy to be? I predict that today, when many people get to the end of their lives, one of their greatest regrets will be how much time they spent on their phone.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:07]:
Yeah.

Allie Marie Smith [00:09:08]:
And I'd like to dive in to the research, what it says about body image disorders.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:15]:
Hit us.

Allie Marie Smith [00:09:16]:
But before I do, I just really hope that your listeners know how beautiful, how cherished, how loved they are, how smart they are. How capable they are and that their best lives are never going to be found on their phone. And so. So you know and I know personally, like I said, I know how on how it can impact you on a soul level. And I have been so guilty of comparing. I'd like to talk about self objectification, objectifying ourselves and objectifying other women. That is something I have done much of my life that I have had to repent in. So, okay, so why don't we dive into your question.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:02]:
So.

Allie Marie Smith [00:10:03]:
So again, I don't think your listeners need me to answer this question because I believe in their hearts they know the answer to that question. I do want to share some research with you. I want to share some statistics that will reinforce what the listener probably already knows to be true. So 50. I'm sorry. 57% of teen girls report feeling worse about their bodies after they use social media. Since social media came out around 2010, body dissatisfaction among girls has increased more than 30%. In addition, 80% of girls compare themselves to images they see online and more than 50% see they wish that they looked like the beauty influencers they follow.

Allie Marie Smith [00:11:04]:
Also, this is pretty wild. The prevalence of eating disorders among girls ages 13 to 18 escalated from about 120 per 100,000 from in 2017 to about 916 per 100,000 girls. And that is a sevenfold increase. In 2010. Something interesting happened and that was the arrival of the iPhone4 which had the front facing camera. We really do see even research shows a steeper increase in body dissatisfaction and addiction overuse of it comparison. And so that was really interesting. It really created a selfie focused social media ecosystem.

Allie Marie Smith [00:12:05]:
And I know from my own life, Heather, I'm not speaking for anyone else. The more inward focus that I've been in my life, the more unwell I've been mentally, the unhappier I have been, the less effective for God's purpose in my life I have been. And so that is a huge part is how it often puts attention on ourselves. And then the chronic social comparisons, also speaking to depression, the suicide rate, Heather, increased 100among girls increased 167% since 2010. Okay, we know now that Jonathan, Jonathan Haight, author of the Anxious Generation, he says this. We know there's not only a correlation. We really now know that these social media platforms are causing eating disorders, poor body image, depression, anxiety and even are directly tied to suicide.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:11]:
Wow.

Allie Marie Smith [00:13:13]:
You know, the interesting thing is the more we use social media, the more lonely and depressed we become. And girls and women because of how God made us. He made us very different from men. We are very sensitive on a soul level to. To images and to what we see visually. And it's also this idea of social perfectionism in. Where we feel not only in life. Right.

Allie Marie Smith [00:13:45]:
I know I've been. I'm a recovering perfectionist. There's blessing. There's a lot of burden in it too. Already in journal, in light, perfectionism comes with a lot of challenges. But you add the social perfectionism that is demanded of us online and it just heightens all these mental health issues and so what do you think, Heather? What do you think? Yeah. Do you think it affects body image?

Heather Creekmore [00:14:16]:
Absolutely, I do. I mean, I don't. I don't like to fall in the camp of, like, it's all social media's fault.

Allie Marie Smith [00:14:25]:
Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:25]:
Because I had body image issues before social media existed.

Allie Marie Smith [00:14:29]:
Absolutely.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:30]:
I do think about that verse. It's in Psalm, and I meant to look it up before we got out of here, Ali, because numbers are not my thing. But it's in Psalm 139, I believe. Or no, it's Psalm 119. 19, 7, I want to say, but it's turn my eyes from versus things.

Allie Marie Smith [00:14:47]:
Yes. And give me.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:49]:
Give me new life in your ways.

Allie Marie Smith [00:14:50]:
And it's amen. I love that verse. I write about it too.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:53]:
Like, why. Why do I keep watching worthless things? Like, what? To your point, with all that time, why am I spending all this time on worthless things? Like, why? Like, why would I continue to do something that I know is bad for.

Allie Marie Smith [00:15:09]:
Me.

Heather Creekmore [00:15:11]:
Over and over? Like, why would I dedicate what, 3, 16. However, like, whatever the range was on the number of years, depending on whether you spend an hour a day or three hours a day. What?

Allie Marie Smith [00:15:20]:
Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:15:21]:
Like, why would I give all that time to something that's just, like, killing me slowly and softly? Right?

Allie Marie Smith [00:15:31]:
Right. And here's the exciting thing, Heather, is God gives us power. He gives us agency. The good news is social media is not oxygen. We do not need it to live. And I will debunk the lie that you need it to be successful. You don't even need it to be successful in life. And that is a big lie that is keeping a lot of girls and women on there.

Allie Marie Smith [00:15:57]:
We have the power. And so with writing, Social media Reset is giving us an invitation, actually something we can do because we have that power. We have that agency. We do not have to spend our lives experiencing unnecessary poor body image, eating disorders, depression and anxiety because of a couple apps on our phone. We just don't and only we can decide. You know, it's hard not using social media like everyone else, but it's a lot harder to have an eating disorder. It is a lot harder to feel imprisoned by constant body shame. It is a lot harder to experience depression, anxiety, suicide.

Allie Marie Smith [00:16:46]:
And so I know I'm giving some tough love here, but it's so important to remember we don't have to be victims to this. We can decide how we are going to use social media. We can decide whether we want to be on it or not be on it. And I, I love this discussion. I would like to close with some practical things we can do before we do. How much time do we have? There's so much we can talk about. Okay, we're good. Okay.

Allie Marie Smith [00:17:14]:
So I would love for us to shift to the idea of self objectification. Okay. I, I know this is something you write about, you talk about. This is something I have experienced experience tremendously in my life. That I, I am the first to admit has impacted me deeply. It is a sin in my life that I'm learning to repent from God. So what is self objectification if your listeners don't already know? It is really this process in which we internalize an outsider's perspective of our body. And so rather than.

Allie Marie Smith [00:17:54]:
Well, first I'll say objectification to start. Objectification is seeing a person as a collection body parts instead of a whole person. It is focusing on their body more than who they are. As a highly perfectionistic teen girl, overachiever, very self focused, very consumed about my appearance, I was the first to objectify other women and objectify myself. And today it is very difficult to not do that completely because of our culture. Our culture has trained us to do this because of our media. Okay? So I remember in high school, I believed if I only had that body, I would be happy, I would not be depressed, I wouldn't feel bad about myself, I wouldn't feel lonely. I'd have love.

Allie Marie Smith [00:18:53]:
I'd have love worth belonging. Everything I would post, I would put up pictures. This was no social media then, right? I would cut out pictures of women from, from Sports Illustrated. I would get pictures of, I'm an athlete and so I love strong, healthy bodies. And I would, you know, cut out pictures of these beautiful, phenomenal athletes and I would put them on a bulletin board on my mirror and I would objectify those women. Did I know what, what brought them joy? Did I know their personalities? Did I know what they love to do in their free time or who they really were? Their Hopes, their dreams. No, I saw them as a collection of body parts, and that is a sin. And that leads to the idolization of the human body.

Allie Marie Smith [00:19:51]:
And that is terribly upsetting to the heart of God. And so not only do we. Not only do men objectify women, women objectify other women, we also objectify ourselves. So social media is an arena that makes objectification of other women and other selves so easy. And we know that that makes us unwell. Right. And there's something called the objectification theory by psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Tommy Ann Roberts, done in 1997. And it shows that self objectification contributes to increased anxiety, to body shame, to depression and eating disorders.

Allie Marie Smith [00:20:37]:
And so those of us like myself who self objectified are more likely to. To experience feelings of inadequacy, low self worth, because they measure themselves by a standard of the ideal body. And so, you know, of course, there's a spiritual ramification to that. Of course. Right. I mean, that we compare that we degrade the value of other women to their bodies and we dismiss their inherent value simply as being children of God, you know, reducing others to their physical appearance and treating them as though their worth is based solely on their look. And so it is damaging and it comes with really serious personal and. And relational and societal consequences.

Allie Marie Smith [00:21:28]:
And, you know, it. It devalues our humanity, our intelligence, our inner worth. And, you know, it's. It's really devastating. And, you know, we know that we are made in the image of God. And going back to that verse in Romans 1:8, I know you talk about this too, Heather, you know, for sense, since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his divine power and eternal nature, have been clearly seen by what is under and understood by what has been made. And it goes on to say, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to Him. But in their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Allie Marie Smith [00:22:17]:
And although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being. And so there's so much to unpack here, Heather. There really is. And so I wanted to dive into that. And I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, and then I really would love. Because, you know, my work, I love to, you know, bring these amazing ideas and scriptural truth to light. But then I love when we make it practical, when we take action and we apply that wisdom to our lives.

Allie Marie Smith [00:22:59]:
So I would love to close by that, if you're okay. With that. But what are your. What are your thoughts? I know you're the, you're the expert here. You, you. This is your work, this is what you do. I know you already teach all this, so.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:11]:
Well, I was just as talking as you were talking. I was thinking about the reality that as someone with body image issues just talking, there's like, say, like your basic instincts isn't the right term. I'm looking for Ally. But like, those of us with body image issues tend to glamorize, worship, want to identify with, admire, maybe that's the best word. We admire models, right? Ooh, if I could look like that. Like the, like the women you put on your. Your mirror.

Allie Marie Smith [00:23:53]:
Right, right.

Heather Creekmore[00:23:53]:
Like, ooh, if I could look like that. And I think what happened with the front facing camera, I mean, are the enemy of our souls.

Allie Marie Smith [00:24:02]:
Is.

Heather Creekmore [00:24:02]:
Is. Is good in terms of his strategies, right? So the front facing camera, suddenly we can all be models, right? And. And it gives you this like, false sense of, oh, I can be a model, like those models I admire and I can be just like them and I can arrive and make it enough people admire me and say how great I look, right? And. And it's like you want to taste it and a little bit more and a little bit more. And maybe if, okay, 100 likes would be better and a million likes would be even better, right? And so we start kind of dabbling in modeling, for lack of a better word. But if you interview a group of models, those. Those women have body image issues worse than any other population, right? Because what has happened is they have learned that that is their value, how they look in pictures. I mean, quite frankly, like, that's how they get paid.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:06]:
There's some, like, distortion there that's just based on economics, right? I don't get paid unless I look good. But it's so confusing to their psyches as to why they are valuable, why they have worth, because they have been told their worth is related to the way they look. And so we think we want to be models to be like that. And then we just step into this whole new deeper realm of body image. And I mean, yeah, spot on with objectification. I honestly, in my comparison Free Life book, I talk about those pictures around your mirror. You know, now it's called Fitz Fitzpatian.

Allie Marie Smith [00:25:45]:
Right?

Heather Creekmore [00:25:46]:
Like, that's demonic. It's demonic for us to worship images of other women, which is what we're doing. We're not saying, Jesus, I want to be like you. We're saying, Jesus, I want to be like, her in her. Maybe a little bit of her, too. Right. Like, it's demonic deception. So I appreciate you bringing all that clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:07]:
Let's talk. Okay. Practically. So what do we do? Like, I mean, let me. Let me, like, throw this out to you, Ali. And I don't know if you were going to answer this, but if. If not, maybe we can add this to the mix. You know, there's young women that feel like unless I'm on social media, I won't know what's going on.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:23]:
I won't be invited to things. Like, I won't have friends. I won't, like, know, like, anything. And so, like, what do you do if that's, like, legitimately your fear?

Allie Marie Smith [00:26:33]:
Yeah. Okay, I want to answer that. Remind me to go back to that, because something really exciting happening now, Heather. So first, you know, I want us to ask ourselves. And listen, I broke my social media addiction. I use it very intentionally, wisely. Even with that, I can still be affected by it. I am.

Allie Marie Smith [00:26:55]:
I have not arrived. I know how difficult it is to be. You know, I am a competitive, like, endurance athlete. And I'll just give you an example. I don't keep social media apps on my phone. I keep them on an iPad, and I access them other. Other ways. I found this woman who does ultra marathons.

Allie Marie Smith [00:27:14]:
I mean, she was so strong. God made me to be an athlete. I feel so much joy, freedom, when I'm running for miles, when I'm worshiping. I really do. And so I was inspired by this woman.

Heather Creekmore [00:27:27]:
Oh, look how.

Allie Marie Smith [00:27:28]:
Look how far she can run, right? And so I started to follow her because it was an inspiration. Okay. Soon, when I did go on my iPad, which I really don't do it often, I would see her. I would see all her selfies, her filming herself running with her gun on her chest. I would see more athletes, more women like her. And before I knew it, that turned into comparison, from inspiration to comparison, and it began to crush my soul. And this was a couple months ago, so I have not arrived. Heather, I am on this journey with you and with all of your listeners.

Allie Marie Smith [00:28:06]:
So back to getting practical. We need to be honest with ourselves and honest with God. Search me, God, and know my heart See if there is any offensive thing in me and lead me into the way everlasting Set me free from this prison that I may praise your name, friend. Are you better with social media? Are you better without it? How do you feel about your body? How do you feel? Do you find yourself objectifying other women? What is it doing to your soul. I know I teach some hard truth, but it's because I love women and I want the best for them. And Jesus wants the best for them. Heather. And we cannot heal from an eating disorder, from a disordered relationship with food, body image, while we endlessly consume social media and use it in a way where we're looking at other women's bodies, we're posting pictures of ourselves.

Allie Marie Smith [00:29:06]:
We will not heal. We simply will not heal from an eating disorder, from a poor body image, chaotic eating, while we use social media. That way, we won't. I don't care if you go to residential therapy. I don't care if you see a counselor two times a week and you're on medication. You are not going to heal. Okay? It's hard. Yeah, it's hard not knowing what other people are doing.

Allie Marie Smith [00:29:30]:
Like I said, it's more hard to be in bondage, to be filled with lies, assaulted by lies daily while you look at a handheld computer on your hand and watch the other lives and bodies of other women. We can't heal. So we need to do the hard thing. It is our responsibility. God gives us freedom. Are we going to allow this to happen to our souls? It is our decision. No one can decide but us. Okay, I say, I write that in order to have joy like no one else, we have to live like no one else.

Allie Marie Smith [00:30:13]:
We are called not to conform to the patterns of this world. We are called not to conform to the social media circus. Okay? God's life is, you know, the, the life God invites us to. It's an unpopular way of life, but it is a better way of life. And it leads to peace, free freedom, joy, contentment and the fullness of God. And so we have to have that conversation. And so, you know, I, in my book, Social Media Reset, it is an escape. It is a guide.

Allie Marie Smith [00:30:49]:
Reset. The. The first thing to do, I recommend to every woman, you need a break. Research has shown 3, 4, 5 days away from social media instantly increases life satisfaction, mental health, joy, body image. Okay? So I love, I really recommend, and again, extended detox, a reset 30 days, at least. So that's why, that is why I wrote this book, because there's a lot of talk about it, but I knew God was calling me to offer a solution. And it is really a reset for our souls. God wants to reset your soul.

Allie Marie Smith [00:31:27]:
And so absolutely, an extended social media break. Everyone should do it. Even if you think, ah, it's not affecting me, what it does to our brains or minds, it's going to heal our Neural pathways. It is going to, it is going to heal. Social media is a world we were not designed to live in and it's making us sick. Once you do that, you can, if you can decide, okay, am I going to go back now? Because you're going to evaluate how it's affecting me. What changes do I want to make? So you can decide, do I want to keep it in my life or, you know, or do I want not want it in my life? If you do want it in your life, there is hope. You don't have to use it like everyone else.

Allie Marie Smith [00:32:07]:
You can master it. It doesn't have to master you. I teach all the boundaries through. I have a list of 15 boundaries you can implement in your life. I don't know how much time we have. I'm happy to share how I healed my social media addiction, how I use it. But beyond that, you know, what else do we want to do? We want to get outside. We want to unplug.

Allie Marie Smith [00:32:30]:
We want to get in creation. We want to be infinite face to face community. We want to hide our face in God's living word that transforms us from the soul and makes us radiant, whole and free. God wants life for us. And social media is an arena that our spiritual enemy is using to wreak havoc, havoc on the hearts, mind, souls of girls and women everywhere. What is happening today is not necessary. It is unprecedented and it is time that we say, no more. No more.

Allie Marie Smith [00:33:12]:
I'm not going to let this make me feel awful about my body, the miracle of my life. God gave me this beautiful, wonderful body to experience the gift of life. We were made for some so much more. There are good things, there are wonderful body, you know, image coaches, wonderful voices, you know, so many, you know, nutritionists, eating disorder, they, they are on social media. They are. But again, if you're in the throws, go find them through a podcast, go read their book. Don't look for it on social media. It's digging for a trash, a steak dinner in the trash can.

Allie Marie Smith [00:33:59]:
Your body, your mind is gonna, you're gonna be better without it again. It's a heart. It's a heart. I know I'm giving some tough love, okay? But we need to decide. Our life is at stake here. Our legacy is at stake here. Our well being, our joy, our peace, our contentment is at stake here. Again, only we can decide.

Allie Marie Smith [00:34:24]:
So, yeah, and then I have wonderful social media boundaries. If someone does want to, you know, use it in a healthy way, I'm happy to teach those on how much time you have. They are in social media reset. Also on my website, it is important to realize how is it impacting us? So on my website, allymariesmith.com I do have a free quiz you can take, and it has over 10 questions that you answer. And it will tell you, you know, are you thriving? Are you balanced? Are you. Is it really affecting you? Give you. It will give you a score right there. And just to give you that awareness.

Allie Marie Smith [00:35:02]:
So I know, I'm like, I know. I hope I'm not, like, preaching too much or. I. I just want. God just wants. God wants our best, you know, our lives are so precious. Our lives are so precious. So this is why I'm so passionate about it.

Allie Marie Smith [00:35:24]:
I am.

Heather [00:35:26]:
I can tell. And I think you're right to be, I don't know, justifiably angry.

Allie Marie Smith [00:35:34]:
Yeah, Yeah, I know there's some anger coming up.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:38]:
Yeah, you're a little angry. But it's a good thing because it's frustrating to watch the enemy steal lives through something that is really so simple to turn off.

Allie Marie Smith [00:35:51]:
Right.

Heather [00:35:51]:
You know, I took the apps off my phone. I couldn't even tell you how long it's been, but it's life changing just not to even have them on your phone. You know, I think your. Your idea of an iPad is. Is smart, where it's like one device that you have to go find. I. I use it on the computer if I need to, but, like, I've even felt guilt around. So I have someone that does social media for me, and I've kind of felt guilt around, like, should I have her even do that? Like, is that triggering for her? You know, because you're right.

Heather [00:36:22]:
You don't have to have social media to be successful, even if you have a business. I mean, I've listened to so many podcast business owners talk about how, like, they've been able to build a business without it.

Allie Marie Smith [00:36:35]:
Right.

Heather  [00:36:36]:
So if they're. They're able to build a business without it, I am quite certain that anyone is able to build a life without it. I mean, I think we're just deceived into believing it's really important and it's not. So thank you, Allie, for your passion. So your book is called Social Media Reset, and we can go to allymariesmith.com to take the quiz, which I would highly recommend you do. Tell everyone maybe just a smidge more about the book and where to find it.

Allie Marie Smith [00:37:06]:
Yeah, so it really, like, it's way more than a social media reset. It's really this, like, life coaching Experience and journey to wake up to the miracle of your life. And it has 30 different topics, and it's full of scripture and practical wisdom for a flourishing life. So my hope is that women and girls who read it will unplug. They will reconnect with God. They will get excited about their lives, they will build lives they love that they can't wait to wake up to, that it's going to be a reset for their soul, that it's going to be transformative. And, you know, I know so often, oh, I went off social media for a week. I'm feeling so much better, you know, every time I hear that.

Allie Marie Smith [00:37:54]:
So I am like, this is a guarantee that, you know, if you do the experience, yeah, it's hard, it's countercultural. But I promise you, your life is going to be different after 30 days. You're going to be happier. You're going to have more peace. If you don't feel free to send me a message, I'll send you a Starbucks gift card.

Heather  [00:38:13]:
So. And you feel confident you're not going to have to buy any Starbucks gift cards, don't you?

Allie Marie Smith [00:38:18]:
I do. I really, really do. This is God's book, okay? This is his message. This is a beautiful invitation to live the life God created us for and to live our lives for the glory of God. And I am really excited for people to enjoy it and really have that soul reset and find the healing they need so that they can walk, enjoy, and freedom. And so, yeah.

Heather  [00:38:48]:
Well, Ali, thanks so much for being on the show today.

Allie Marie Smith [00:38:51]:
Yeah. And, Heather, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the amazing work that you do. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of faithfulness to show up. You've been doing this for so many years, and you really don't. Won't know the full impact of the. Of the magnitude of the work that you are doing and how it's impacting the girls and women who listen, who read your books. And I just want to encourage you in that.

Allie Marie Smith [00:39:14]:
I want to thank you for being one of the leading voices about how to have a biblical view of our bodies. And I know your content is really blessed and encouraged me and I know I need it on the regular. So it's an honor to. To be on your podcast. And thanks for being on the wonderfully made podcast as well. And listeners, I love you. You're amazing. You're wonderfully made.

Heather Creekmore [00:39:40]:
You're a miracle, and God has the best in store for you.

Heather [00:39:45]:
Amen. Amen. Well, thanks again, Ally, and thank you for watching or listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living.

Heather Creekmore [00:39:53]:
Bye bye.

[00:39:54]:
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Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.