I was a freshman in college when Facebook came out and I distinctly remember thinking, "why would I need this? I have AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace!"

Well, times have changed. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (and a slew of other sites I'm not cool enough to know about) have simultaneously brought us closer together and driven us further apart. With the exception of a few universally offensive statements or pictures, it's a rule-free zone where we can interact with society while accepting minimal personal responsibility for the implications of what we do.

In absence of guidelines for healthy and polite social media etiquette, we are left to determine our own boundaries for navigating the seemingly endless opportunities available to us.

Before we snap one more picture of our hot chocolate topped with a foam leaf, perhaps we would benefit from a brief pause—an extra 30 seconds to ask five simple questions might suggest it's time to unplug, or at least reconsider when and how we use social media:

1. Am I seeking approval?

If you've taken an introductory psychology class, you've probably heard of B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning. Skinner suggested that we learn behaviors through reinforcement.

When I seek validation through something I post and that little red flag starts popping up to notify me of each person giving me attention, it's an addictive reward. And it works. I feel better, so I keep coming back for more. The next time I need to feel approval, I'll return to the source that poured it out last time, and the cycle of reinforcement continues.

In 2012, sociologist Robert Woodberry published the astonishing fruit of a decade of research into the effect of missionaries on the health of nations. The January/February 2014 issue of Christianity Today tells the story of what he found in an article called "The World the Missionaries Made."

There is a lesson implicit in these findings that I would like to draw out for the sake of the eternal fruitfulness of missions as well as her power to transform cultures.

Titled "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy," Woodberry's article in theAmerican Political Science Review, defends this thesis: "The work of missionaries . . . turns out to be the single largest factor in insuring the health of nations" (36). This was a discovery that he says landed on him like an "atomic bomb" (38).

A Sweeping Claim

To be more specific, Woodberry's research supported this sweeping claim:

Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations. (39)

He concedes that "there were and are racist missionaries . . . and missionaries who do self-centered things." But adds: "If that were the average effect, we would expect that the places where missionaries had influence to be worse, than places where missionaries weren't allowed or were restricted in action. We find exactly the opposite on all kinds of outcomes" (40).

If successful, Google's newest venture could help to eliminate one of the most painful and intrusive daily routines of diabetics.

People with diabetes have difficulty controlling the level of sugar in their blood stream, so they need to monitor their glucose levels -- typically by stabbing themselves with small pin pricks, swabbing their blood onto test strips and feeding them into an electronic reader.

Google's smart contacts could potentially make blood sugar monitoring far less invasive.

The prototype contacts are outfitted with tiny wireless chips and glucose sensors, sandwiched between two lenses. They are able to measure blood sugar levels once per second, and Google is working on putting LED lights inside the lenses that would flash when those levels are too low or high.

The electronics in the lens are so small that they appear to be specks of glitter, Google said. The wireless antenna is thinner than a human hair.

They're still in the testing phase and not yet ready for prime time. Google (GOOG,Fortune 500) has run clinical research studies, and the company is in discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Diabetes is a chronic problem, affecting about one in 19 people across the globe and one in 12 in the United States.