How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like Facebook

I've been intrigued by what facebook has done for our mental health.  As a therapist, I cannot tell you how often fb comes up as a topic. 

Here's what I notice primarily:  Facebook can be socially really rough for some people.  It is a source of constant social comparison.  At a simple level, "how many friends do I have" compared with other people?  In a more nuanced emotional expression, I notice that many people are both cynical of how their 'friends' present themselves publicly as well as jealous and insecure (i.e., her family looks like they have so much fun!  Joe goes on better vacations than I do!, or all my friends in Seattle are having the best time together, they're not going to care about being friend with me anymore!).   I would say this is easily the most negative outcome for a lot of folks.

But I also see ways fb influences us that are kind of 'in-between' - neither wholly good nor wholly negative... something we can stay aware of and curious about.  Sometimes we feel a sense of anxiety or disconnection - fb can be an easy fix to feel connected again.  "I burned my chocolate chip cookies!"  Or "my kid had the flu" - it's a great feeling to have a bunch of friends offer their quick support - I know I've truly appreciated it, when I've reached out over fb in that way. We also want to share and connect in celebration - I think most of us mostly enjoy the opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge our good friends. On the other end of the spectrum, we may miss out on connecting with people who are with us, physically, including our kids, when we are getting such instant gratification from fb.  We feel lulled by sometimes surface relationships and find it easy to ignore people who are there with us.  Most people I know who are on fb lament what a time suck it can be.  I'm a person who gets on fb 4-6 times a week, but whenever I am, I'm like "Oh my gosh, I've been on here a half hour and I had no idea!"

I also think it's interesting the way fb brings our past into our present.  We are easily able to be in community in immediate and accessible ways with people, who even ten years ago would have been sort of marked in the compartment of our 'past.'  Recently, I've had a couple really meaningful reconnections with friends, who 'pre-fb' might have been much harder to find.  Yet, I wonder if kids graduating from high school in 2012 will find the same meaning in looking at different times in their life that people in my generation and older have had.   Again, I don't condemn this or long for an earlier time, I just believe that if fb is not a 'fad' and will be a tool that all of us utilize on into our old age, it will impact our sense of  time, nostalgia, and the very meaning of our own 'past.'  What will that be like?

In the end, I just want us to be curious and thoughtful about fb.  I would love to instruct all my 'young' clients to: STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO EVERYBODY ON FACEBOOK.  If you find that you're one of these people, I recommend scaling way back on your usage.  A phrase many of us have heard and is worth repeating is, "you can't compare your insides to somebody else's outsides." 

We are all more interesting, complicated, flawed, and gifted than our fb profiles.  Thankfully.