What is Facebook doing to our teenagers?

I'm sure it's not just rose-tinted nostalgia - but I don't remember my own teenage years being quite so angst-ridden as what I see going on now.

Of course, I had all the same things to deal with as everyone has always had:

• working out what to do with my strange attraction to the opposite sex
• trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life
• pushing against parents and authority as I flexed by adult-like independence, and of course…
• terminal acne - in the sense that I died of embarrassment as my face erupted uncontrollably at quite the wrong moments.

But at least I had some quiet space - where I could relax out of the gaze of others and just be "myself" in a way that is difficult at school of the youth group, where some kind of posturing was the order of the day. That space was at home, or on the bus to school, or on a walk to the church. With my friends I could appear cool, or hard, or funny (never quite managed sophisticated) for a while, because I knew that I had a safe space to retreat to.

And this is where my growing Christian faith helped too. I read my Bible and discovered the depths and delight of who I really was. And I prayed to a God who knew the deepest depths of me and yet still loved me with a savage, redeeming passion.

But now it is so different. Our teenagers are growing up in a world that is never out of touch - that always has connection. And where the worst thing to contemplate is "going off the grid." With phone in hand, there is no respite to the onslaught of information designed to stoke the self-awareness neuroses of the hardiest mortal.

At one level, the wry comments, witty banter and endless good-time photography from your friendship circle that streams through the wi-fi is endlessly positive.

I'm sharp.
I'm having a great time.
Look at the stuff I've been given.
Look at what I've just bought.
Look at the amazing holiday I'm on.

It oozes positivity without a hint of the sense of panic, fear of failure, aimlessness and boredom that never lurks far beneath the surface of an adolescent.

But here's the big trap. Because it seems that everyone else is so confident, assured and having a great time - all it does to me is amplify the awareness that I am none of those things. It feeds the feelings of inadequacy that are so much a part of a teenagers life - and turbo-charges them. And worst thing is that there is no respite - it never goes away. Teenage kids will fall asleep in the small hours with their chiming, vibrating accuser clutched in their hands.

The phone is sold on a ticket of freedom and social inclusion. But what it can deliver is slavery and fear. They are frightened to fall out of the loop of conversation - because they might miss something - or become the object of gossip themselves. And because adolescents don't have the experience to take things with a pinch of salt or to see through the public face that most people put on for others, they are very badly placed to process it.

I don't think there's a magic bullet.

We could become hermits and cut the broadband. We could become luddites and smash their iPads. Both would be to ignore the problem.

So we need to keep the conversation going - hard enough with most teenagers. If they continually hear that the Lord looks on the heart; that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful; that they are deeply loved by their parents - even if they are aimless, pimpled and bored; and that in Christ they are more beautiful than they can ever make themselves with label clothing and makeup; and more accepted than they ever will be by any group of friends. They need to hear clearly, frequently, encouragingly and lovingly the good news of the Gospel:

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8 v 1