Something is seriously wrong.

The realization dawned on Sarah Zylstra as she worked on the latest episode of Recorded, a longform podcast from TGC. She was already well aware of the adverse effects of social media on young women—that’s why she’d edited a new book, Social Sanity in an Insta World, and had set out to produce a podcast on the phenomenon.

But nothing had prepared Zylstra for hearing from teens whose parents had done everything right.

In an episode titled “Scrolling Alone” (a nod to sociologist Robert Putnam’s landmark book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community), Zylstra conducted in-depth interviews with three young women—all believers, all bright (students at the University of California, Berkeley), all raised by responsible parents. What she discovered was disconcerting, to put it mildly.

This is a full-fledged public-health crisis. Whether you read or listen to the audio story, brace yourself to learn, prepare yourself to pray, and position yourself to use social media, rather than letting it use you.