At Risk For Facebook Depression?

When on Facebook, do you…

- Spend more than five minutes looking through someone else’s tagged photos?
- View profiles without leaving any indication you were there?
- Read conversations on someone’s wall that does not pertain to you?
- Dwell on how happy your friend looks in their new profile picture?
- Feel a twinge in your stomach when someone has more friends than you?

If these symptoms occur on a regular basis in your life, you may be susceptible to Facebook depression. Although research is still inconclusive, an article by Fox News explores the potential that Facebook may be causing depression among its users, and let’s face it, we’re all users of this wonderfully addictive site.

The article targets teenagers as the main victims of Facebook depression, as they are less confident in themselves as the college students who co-habit a large portion of Facebook. Social networking is at an all-time high, targeting the generations who create the majority of their identity through interaction on the internet. In Effective Biblical Counseling, Larry Crabb states that the average person seeks security and significance in life. We seek to win the approval of our peers, to find our self-worth in the validation of others. This is the lure of Facebook.

It is important to note that a healthy self-esteem may protect you from succumbing to social media induced depression. So take heart! You can build your online self-esteem by carefully cultivating a profile page that you can be proud of and showcases the very heart of yourself. Fill in all every band that you’ve remotely liked since the age of five, start some gossip with a witty status about the cute brunette you made eye contact with in class, or post the latest viral video to hit YouTube.

Or, you could just log off Facebook and actually go see your friends. That would work too.

Are We Truly Helping?

After reading Effective Biblical Counseling by Dr. Larry Crab, I found myself reflecting on what I believe is the biggest issue between counseling and Christianity: are we really helping people grow closer to God by helping them find satisfaction apart from Him? I state this question very objectively, because I do believe that a trained Christian counselor should use the proven techniques of the field in counseling someone, even in a secular field where Christ is not allowed to be mentioned unless the client initiates it. This brings healing to the client's life, a healing that can lead them closer to Christ. However, it would be foolish to ignore the other argument, that by resolving the surface issues of the heart, we fail to address the ultimate issue, which is the client's eternal separation from God because they do not have faith in the Savior. Should we, as counselors in a secular field, encourage our clients to find a (seemingly) satisfying life apart from God?

The only way that I can address the issue is to use the analogy of a Christian at a restaurant, who leaves a Bible tract behind as a tip to the waitress, without actually giving her any money. Yes, if she truly received the message in the tract, then she would understand how priceless it is, and would care less about the money. However, what she will see, is a cheap Christian who does not actually care about her, or appreciate her service. Why would she see this, when the Christian attempted to give her something that could change her life? Because "people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." And I would have to ask if the Christian in this example really cared about the waitress's well being.

That is where we come in. This issue is more so about our hearts instead of our clients. Why do we counsel others? Because we care about them, and we want to help them. If true Christianity is taking care of widows and orphans, then our priority should be showing them the love of God, even if we cannot mention the name of God. After this, we need to have faith that the Holy Spirit can work in their lives, that God can bring people into their lives who can share the gospel with them. That is where our responsibility lies, and that is what we can do in obedience to God.

Prejudice: when those I hate are the ones I need most

I was reading Live Science and I came across this article that was about the concept of displaced anger. Well maybe anger is too strong of a word. It is more like displaced feelings of ill-will. In the article they were saying how when people feel bad about themselves they have been proven to be more prejudice against others.

I thought this was very interesting in light of something that I read in Larry Crabb’s book called Connecting. The book Connecting is all about how we can all help each other with the things that we are going through if we just take the extra time to make connections with one another that are meaningful. In the book Crabb made a point that people that don’t know us that well tend to find the most to appreciate in us.

The thing is, this turns into an ugly circle. For me when I am feeling bad about myself the thing that makes me feel better the fastest is when others say appreciative things to me. However the people that know me the least are most likely to be appreciative of me but according to the article I would push these people away due to my prejudices when I need them the most. So how do you get out of the circle? Well I guess that is what Crabb’s book is all about. We have to connect.

"If a Body 'Catch' a Body, Comin' Through the Rye..."

Larry Crabb’s book, Connecting, has been an interesting and, at times, brow-raising read. Crabb’s ideas for how Christians might more effectively “connect something powerful with something good” utilizing the Christ-like energy within are certainly not old hat idioms in terms of modern Christian writing – he even addresses the obvious risks of positing such a radically different position from his earlier work so late in his professional career. Regardless of the initial reticence that one may feel toward this approach, Dr. Crabb does inspire some compelling internal dialog in the reader regarding the paramountcy of true connection and genuine relationships between Christians, and more importantly, the sobering ramifications of disconnection.

A few things come to mind when I think of “loners”: Jesse James, “Into the Wild”, James Dean, “Desperado” (both the movie and the song by the Eagles), Wolverine from the X-Men, Troy Dyer in “Reality Bites”, that 35 year old guy trying to pass as a high school student on Beverly Hills 90210, many, many of my favorite poets, J.D. Salinger, Doc Holliday, Thoreau during his Walden phase…you get the idea. In this messy milieu of everyone-in-everyone-else’s-business, hyper-social networking, media-crazed insanity we call modern life, it’s a wonder anyone can possibly get away with being a recluse these days, and yet they do. But at what cost?

A lie is still a lie, no matter how popular it may become. No matter how much the media may glorify the lone rebel, or praise the free-spirited, non-committal attitudes of an immoral lifestyle, the fact remains that God built us to be relational creatures who care for and uplift one another while carrying one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2). It would have been utterly cruel and unfair to design us to be islands unto ourselves and then have commanded us to love one another as we have been loved. On occasions too numerous to count, God has used others to open my eyes and heart in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. Isolation prohibits me from receiving this nourishment and connecting in fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ which is, well, no bueno. As a somewhat reformed introvert, I can understand the inclination to want to pull into one’s shell, dwelling only on the things and people that we enjoy, but does this really stretch or grow us? Does it help others? As counselors, we will often be in the position of needing to connect in a very meaningful way with a variety of people, some of whom we may vehemently disagree with, and some that we may not even particularly like. Whether we can connect in the way that Larry Crabb suggests remains to be seen, but one thing is clear – our obligation is to the profession of soul-care which means reaching out even when we’re unsure, stepping closer when we might want to run away, and being mindfully present when maybe, we would rather be fishing.