"Does Facebook make us unhappy?"
How interesting and timely.
I came home from vacation, 8 glorious days of being unplugged (yes, phone, internet, ipad...all of it) and guess what? I didn't miss it. Yes it was odd not being in touch with family, but they knew how to contact us if there was an emergency. Otherwise, we were engaged, entertained, together and in the moment, not each with our "electronic devices" to our faces as can happen at home. I do love my internet surfing, and am in no way giving it up, but I am going to use it with more awareness. It's great when I can't sleep at night, or want to catch up with family or read something interesting or answer a question we have, but mindless surfing has to go. I'll see how I do.
(Yes, I am surfing today, but I have a good excuse! I'm taking care of my niece who had 3 wisdom teeth extracted just this morning, so I'm hanging close by!)
The question in the article is does Facebook makes us happier, or unhappier? For an introvert like me, being able to keep up with friends and family that are far away is really a bonus. I know what is going on in my cousins' lives that I would never be able to keep up with if it was up to me to pick up a phone and chat for an hour...oh how I hate the phone! But there have been times that I've learned something on Facebook that I wish had been a little more personal.
And this line is what concerns me with raising a pre-teen:
In ongoing research, the psychologist Timothy Wilson has learned, as he put it to me, that college students start going “crazy” after just a few minutes in a room without their phones or a computer. “One would think we could spend the time mentally entertaining ourselves,” he said. “But we can’t. We’ve forgotten how.”
I don't want him to forget how to entertain himself without a phone to his face.
And it's up to me to teach him how to do that.
No comments:
Post a Comment