Remember the good old days? You know, when break ups were fun, and no one suffered from anxiety or depression, and no one had asthma? Facebook has ruined all of that!
That's right: Facebook can cause asthma attacks, according to an article in the journal The Lancet. According to a story in the LA Times, "Facebook can trigger asthma attacks, doctors warn."
Here's an (admittedly oversimplified) explanation of what the article says. If your girlfriend breaks up with you, and you find out on Facebook (using a fake name) that she's probably dating other men, you may feel anxiety and depression. If you have a pre-existing asthma condition, this stress may cause an asthma attack.
Blaming Facebook because it allows you to discover stressful information hardly seems fair. Facebook can cause stress but so can phone calls, letters, telegraph messages, morse code, papyrus scrolls, etc. Here's a more accurate headline: Breakups are stressful, and stress can heighten asthma symptoms.
There is a subcategory of media articles that seem to imply that everything's totally different now than it was before technology X came along (Facebook, the printing press, etc.). But human nature isn't totally different now. Human nature takes centuries to change. So these stories don't make a lot of sense when the message is that we should be worried, for example, that Google is making us stupid, or that Text messaging increases health risks. And so on.
Facebook is the medium, not the message. Breaking up is hard, and that's a problem that's not going away.
