David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Facebook: A Cold Hard Look
by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Thu, Jun 23rd 2011
Facebook has over 500 million active users who log about 700 billion minutes per month looking at pictures, writing in quotes, sharing stories, and sometimes just sweeping up and down the screen. This can be a wonderful adventure in checking in to see what people are up to personally and professionally who you may have lost touch with years ago. I also have to consider, like anything else, at what point does it increase our stress, water down our relationships, become an addictive behavior or shift us away from what really matters? This is worth being curious about and your experience will be different from your neighbors.
Here are a few things to consider when taking a good cold hard look at your relationship to Facebook and what it potentially means in the scope of your life in being inevitably nourishing or depleting.
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and conducts a private practice in West Los Angeles. He is co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (New Harbinger, February 2010). Check out Dr. Goldstein's acclaimed CD's on Mindful Solutions for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, Mindful Solutions for Addiction and Relapse Prevention, and Mindful Solutions for Success and Stress Reduction at Work.
by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Thu, Jun 23rd 2011
Facebook has over 500 million active users who log about 700 billion minutes per month looking at pictures, writing in quotes, sharing stories, and sometimes just sweeping up and down the screen. This can be a wonderful adventure in checking in to see what people are up to personally and professionally who you may have lost touch with years ago. I also have to consider, like anything else, at what point does it increase our stress, water down our relationships, become an addictive behavior or shift us away from what really matters? This is worth being curious about and your experience will be different from your neighbors.
Here are a few things to consider when taking a good cold hard look at your relationship to Facebook and what it potentially means in the scope of your life in being inevitably nourishing or depleting.
- Intentional or Unintentional Use - Whether you?re surfing Facebook on the phone, your IPad or your computer, how often do you switch onto it intentionally as a time of restoration or play versus unintentionally as a time to check out? Do you ever wonder if you?re using it too much? Have you ever tried to cut down with it only to find yourself using it for the same amount of time later on? We have to wonder at what point does something become a problem or addictive behavior? The truth is, nothing?s a problem unless it?s a problem, but it?s worth being curious about how it?s impacting your life, is it a problem?
- At times, not truly restorative - The reality is, we can use Facebook to nourish us as a time of restoration. But if we are unintentionally drawn to it as a means of distracting ourselves or checking out, it?s likely wasting your invaluable resource of attention and depleting you more than you know. It takes a lot of attention to sift through the enormous amount of information even if it is passive. Your mind is still at work and not really getting the relaxation and restoration it truly needs. When it?s on your phone, it?s even worse as your attention is sifting through information and looking for the next update from email, text, chat, tweets, YouTube, app updates or whatever. Or maybe you?re on Facebook while interacting with your friends, kids or watching television. This is called continuous partial attention and it?s inevitably taxing on your system.
- Watering down relationships ? There?s just a truism that we can only have so many close quality relationships. When we?re paying attention to so many people?s lives at once, we have to wonder to what extent is does this water down the ?quality? of our relationships. On the one hand it can create a feeling of staying connected, but on the other hand if it is taking us away from the people who are in our physical presence like family and friends, then are we really getting the connection that we need?
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist and conducts a private practice in West Los Angeles. He is co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (New Harbinger, February 2010). Check out Dr. Goldstein's acclaimed CD's on Mindful Solutions for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, Mindful Solutions for Addiction and Relapse Prevention, and Mindful Solutions for Success and Stress Reduction at Work.
