The Novel Perspective

I interface with Psychology Today.

Wow, the stories of these clients describe how I feel on a regular basis with facebook in my life. I recently turned 30 and got engaged, however, my very judgmental and cruel extended family have been making comments about my weight and my unmarried status for a while. I got engaged this year but I haven't announced my new status or publicly shared a single photo on facebook of my fiance because I'm so scared that our lives and our looks just don't measure up to the fantasy seeming lives of these friends and relatives. Also, the culture that my family is from, my fiance's race is going to get talked about, too.

But somehow seeing these people's lifestyle updates and pictures, I am constantly wishing I were prettier, thinner, more funny, less sad and pathetic- always more or less something or the other. It's tiring. And yet I can't seem to tear myself away.

I received so much pressure to join facebook that I finally gave in, however, I only sign on about once a month if I need to respond to an invite, wish a friend a happy birthday, or e-mail a someone with important news. It has become nearly impossible to maintain these basic communications without a facebook account. The majority of my friends no longer even send e-mails or e-vites. Everything is done over facebook. I have to admit I sort of resent this. I feel literally forced to join something I don't believe in just to stay in the basic loop with many of the people I care about.

I have also seen facebook disrupt the well being of friends and clients and am quite disturbed by this. I have clients in thier 50s who are literally back into high school dramas. I think there is a reason we don't naturally stay connected to everyone from our past and with facebook, people are forced back into social situations they otherwise would have healthy seperation from. I truly beleive facebook is directly responsible for a mass rebound of immature behavior and I hope and pray we as a society get a handle on this before we lose enjoyable aspects of being a grown adult, which includes the luxury of just focusing on your family and the people closest to you. To get to a place where you no longer care about what a bunch of mere aquaintances are saying about you is a right of passage and facebook is threatening to take that away. It's sheer design makes it very hard to deny friend requests without being hurtful. I graduated high school in 1996 and at the time I felt like I had been through 4 years of relational turmoil. In 2011, I have no desire to go back to a place of over-magnified social comparison.

I received so much pressure to join facebook that I finally gave in, however, I only sign on about once a month if I need to respond to an invite, wish a friend a happy birthday, or e-mail a someone with important news. It has become nearly impossible to maintain these basic communications without a facebook account. The majority of my friends no longer even send e-mails or e-vites. Everything is done over facebook. I have to admit I sort of resent this. I feel literally forced to join something I don't believe in just to stay in the basic loop with many of the people I care about.

I have also seen facebook disrupt the well being of friends and clients and am quite disturbed by this. I have clients in thier 50s who are literally back into high school dramas. I think there is a reason we don't naturally stay connected to everyone from our past and with facebook, people are forced back into social situations they otherwise would have healthy seperation from. I truly beleive facebook is directly responsible for a mass rebound of immature behavior and I hope and pray we as a society get a handle on this before we lose enjoyable aspects of being a grown adult, which includes the luxury of just focusing on your family and the people closest to you. To get to a place where you no longer care about what a bunch of mere aquaintances are saying about you is a right of passage and facebook is threatening to take that away. It's sheer design makes it very hard to deny friend requests without being hurtful. I graduated high school in 1996 and at the time I felt like I had been through 4 years of relational turmoil. In 2011, I have no desire to go back to a place of over-magnified social comparison.

I received so much pressure to join facebook that I finally gave in, however, I only sign on about once a month if I need to respond to an invite, wish a friend a happy birthday, or e-mail a someone with important news. It has become nearly impossible to maintain these basic communications without a facebook account. The majority of my friends no longer even send e-mails or e-vites. Everything is done over facebook. I have to admit I sort of resent this. I feel literally forced to join something I don't believe in just to stay in the basic loop with many of the people I care about.

I have also seen facebook disrupt the well being of friends and clients and am quite disturbed by this. I have clients in thier 50s who are literally back into high school dramas. I think there is a reason we don't naturally stay connected to everyone from our past and with facebook, people are forced back into social situations they otherwise would have healthy seperation from. I truly beleive facebook is directly responsible for a mass rebound of immature behavior and I hope and pray we as a society get a handle on this before we lose enjoyable aspects of being a grown adult, which includes the luxury of just focusing on your family and the people closest to you. To get to a place where you no longer care about what a bunch of mere aquaintances are saying about you is a right of passage and facebook is threatening to take that away. It's sheer design makes it very hard to deny friend requests without being hurtful. I graduated high school in 1996 and at the time I felt like I had been through 4 years of relational turmoil. In 2011, I have no desire to go back to a place of over-magnified social comparison.

I received so much pressure to join facebook that I finally gave in, however, I only sign on about once a month if I need to respond to an invite, wish a friend a happy birthday, or e-mail a someone with important news. It has become nearly impossible to maintain these basic communications without a facebook account. The majority of my friends no longer even send e-mails or e-vites. Everything is done over facebook. I have to admit I sort of resent this. I feel literally forced to join something I don't believe in just to stay in the basic loop with many of the people I care about.

I have also seen facebook disrupt the well being of friends and clients and am quite disturbed by this. I have clients in thier 50s who are literally back into high school dramas. I think there is a reason we don't naturally stay connected to everyone from our past and with facebook, people are forced back into social situations they otherwise would have healthy seperation from. I truly beleive facebook is directly responsible for a mass rebound of immature behavior and I hope and pray we as a society get a handle on this before we lose enjoyable aspects of being a grown adult, which includes the luxury of just focusing on your family and the people closest to you. To get to a place where you no longer care about what a bunch of mere aquaintances are saying about you is a right of passage and facebook is threatening to take that away. It's sheer design makes it very hard to deny friend requests without being hurtful. I graduated high school in 1996 and at the time I felt like I had been through 4 years of relational turmoil. In 2011, I have no desire to go back to a place of over-magnified social comparison.