How Many Times Did You Check Facebook Today?
Are you one of those people who can’t resist checking your Facebook page, no matter where you are and what else you’re doing? How often do you log on? Once a day, twice a day, or every 20 minutes? Perhaps you constantly peek at Facebook while you’re at work, even if you know your employer doesn’t like it? Well, you certainly aren’t alone.
The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has revealed that his social networking platform now has more than a billion registered users around the globe.6 Yet a decade ago, in December 2004, Facebook had just 1 million users. So how has it managed to grow so rapidly that it’s increased its size a thousand times over?
Clearly, whatever Facebook offers, a lot of people want it. Many of us are unable to resist our fix of gossip from friends and family, and where’s the harm in that? Well, the answer depends on the effect it has on you.
Has being on Facebook ever caused you to have a row with your partner, or led to embarrassment at work? Have you ever forgotten to do something important because you were too busy updating your status; or have you ever woken up exhausted because you’ve been up half the night on the internet? Do you worry or obsess about things that you or other people have said on Facebook?
In 2008, I caused a bit of a media storm when I argued that people were becoming hooked on the urge to acquire more and more friends on Facebook in order to appear popular and successful. I warned that women were particularly vulnerable, as they often get their self-esteem from relationships. My comments raised a lot of eyebrows at the time, but today most rehab clinics are coming round to the idea that social networking sites can have an adverse effect on people with an addictive nature. Of course they do have a role to play in modern life as a communication tool, and I currently use Facebook myself in this way.
So, what is it about social networking that we find so seductive? Well, there are potentially several complex emotional processes at play.
When we log on to Facebook, and we see that we have lots of friends, it gives us affirmation that we’re valued. We feel popular and liked, and this boosts our self-esteem. It gives us a little buzz and we feel better about ourselves, and this can be very addictive.
In my opinion, nobody is completely immune to this effect, which might explain why Facebook is so universally popular. If you’re a well-balanced individual and you’re confident of your own self-worth, then it’s not going to cause you too many problems.
But what if you suffer from low self-esteem? You find yourself constantly bombarded with messages from all these friends who seem to have wonderful lives, and who are always having such a great time. Pretty soon, you’re going to start feeling ‘Less Than’. Why aren’t you having the same brilliant fun as them? There’s a danger you’ll become insecure, which in turn will make you crave affirmation all the more.
Of course, there’s nothing evil about the idea of Facebook in itself. Keeping in touch with others is a natural thing to do. The problem for addicts is that it can create an altered reality in which everybody seems to be having a wonderful time, even when their life is a pile of shit! It creates an expectation that everything ought to be hunky-dory all the time – and when it’s not it creates a huge dent in our confidence.
Facebook is a very superficial way of interacting with others. It’s like a TV picture of our lives, and in my opinion, it shows how we’ve become obsessed with ‘the Culture of Celebrity’. When Andy Warhol said that in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes, he underestimated it, because he couldn’t have foreseen Facebook.
Today, everybody wants to be famous – all the time – all over Facebook, forever. The way people portray themselves on their page is exactly as if they’re a mini celebrity. Their every waking moment becomes part of a living soap opera, no matter how mundane the detail might be. Facebook is the ultimate reality show (the irony being that the reality it portrays is built on foundations that are false).
On Facebook, people live in a world that’s sugar-coated and packed with fun. Of course, we all know that the real world is very different. Genuine celebrities (who, after all, are just normal human beings themselves) are often the first to admit that their glittering public persona is a myth. They suffer the same stresses and strains as the rest of us. It’s called being human…
So let’s look in a bit more detail at what happens when a person with an addictive nature repeatedly checks their Facebook page. Why do they do it? Well, at a subconscious level, they could be searching for reassurance about their self-worth. They look at all those friends, and think that they must be popular.
This might sound harmless, but their hopes are rarely validated, and the more they find themselves searching, the more likely it is that they have issues about their self-confidence, hence the need for constant affirmation. I’ve encountered young women who panic if they can’t check Facebook, yet they go into meltdown when they do because everyone seems to be doing so much better than them.
In fact, if you want to feel bad, just go online and see how many more friends everyone else has. Yet the very idea of counting our friends in order to evaluate our self-worth is slightly preposterous. I saw one person on Facebook with almost 5,000 friends (the level at which I’m told many accounts are capped). I don’t think I even know 5,000 people, let alone have that many friends!
Modern technology allows everybody to be connected 24 hours a day, with no respite. We’re bombarded with emails, texts, phone calls, tweets and Facebook messages. This might seem a great idea, but like most things that we enjoy to begin with, diminishing returns soon begin to set in, and the consequences can be increasingly negative.
The limitless connectivity that technology facilitates can become an addictive process in itself.
I know that when I’m in a restaurant I sit there constantly checking my phone for messages. It almost becomes a reflex action that’s beyond my control. If I don’t do it, I start to worry. What if somebody is trying to get hold of me? Am I missing something important? Is everything else okay in the rest of the world? It’s not a nice feeling.
Here’s a little test you might like to take. Try switching your phone off for a whole day and see what sort of effect it has on you. Ask yourself:
In other words, do you feel anxious and uneasy when you stop using your phone as an emotional crutch? These are the classic symptoms of withdrawal.
I have a friend who is a recovering alcoholic and he simply has to take his BlackBerry with him everywhere, including on holiday. Even when he’s by the pool in a hot country, he forces himself to check it at periodic times during the day, regardless of whether or not he’s actually expecting any messages.
So, instead of relaxing and enjoying his holiday, his mind is always wandering back to concerns about work and other minor issues at home. He can actually feel a small amount of tension building up in his stomach before he checks his phone, and then he experiences a little wave of relief if everything is clear and there are no troublesome emails. On the rare occasions that he actually gets a message, he’s straight back into work mode and projecting about what’s going to happen when he returns to the UK.
The procedure my friend goes through by constantly checking his BlackBerry is part of an addictive process, and it’s caused by the background anxiety about life that most addicts suffer from. When he picks up the phone he’s seeking to alleviate that anxiety by reassuring himself that there’s nothing bad going on back home. When he gets affirmation of this, it temporarily relieves the anxiety, and reassures him that he’s okay.
Unfortunately, the respite is temporary and diminishing returns set in, causing him to spend the whole holiday worrying about work. This makes him all the more stressed, which makes him even more of a slave to his BlackBerry! The process he goes through is beyond his control because it’s triggered by his limbic system and is a symptom of codependency. He’s always on the lookout for a threat: and his BlackBerry is his warning system.
If you’re a slave to Facebook or your mobile device, it could be a sign of deep insecurity, which can be a major cause of addiction.
It might not seem like an addiction per se, but the process is the same as if you take drugs or drink booze. You do it again and again, looking for an instant lift. The way to tell if you have a problem is by examining the effect that it has on your life. If it’s causing negative consequences, you need to ask yourself why you’re doing it.
One of the reasons that modern technology causes so many issues for people with an addictive nature is that it’s omnipresent: there’s no respite in our daily lives from the 24/7 chatter of the rest of the world.
Another problem is that it can dehumanize the interaction between people. I’ve given talks and lectures in schools, and one of the things pupils constantly tell me about is the number of problems and fights that are caused by things that have been posted on social networking sites. It’s easy when you’re sat in front of a computer screen, or tapping on a phone, to write something nasty and offensive about someone that you wouldn’t dream of saying to their face.
We now regularly see items in the news about people who’ve been arrested for this kind of thing; it’s known as ‘trolling’, but it’s just bullying under a different name.
There are at least two major ways that mobile technology can affect those with an addictive nature. On the one hand it becomes a conduit for channelling their fears and anxiety: they need to keep checking their emails or messages to reassure themselves that nothing bad is going on that they need to know about.
The second effect is that it allows their codependency to run riot. If we’re codependent we’re reliant on other people to validate our sense of self-worth. We don’t feel okay unless we’re certain that others feel okay about us. This means we’re always worried about what other people think of us – and it can feel like torture if, as a result, we find ourselves worrying about the finer semantics of every email or text message we receive.
This is something that people with an addictive nature find themselves doing all the time. An email can be read in many different ways, depending on its context. If you find yourself worrying about every little word and phrase that your boss uses in an email, this could be a sign of insecurity on your part.
Perhaps you’ve sent an email and then found yourself worried about how it will be interpreted? Was the tone too curt, or will the recipient mistake what you meant for something else? Were you too familiar, or too gushing? These are all classic signs of the sort of ‘people-pleasing’ behaviour that can be a symptom of codependency.
When patients are admitted to treatment centres like the Priory, one of the first things the nurses do is take away their phones. This is because patients need peace and quiet, and it’s beneficial for them to be cut off from the temptations of the outside world.
When I counsel alcoholics and addicts who are in early recovery, I usually advise them to avoid using Facebook because I’ve seen first-hand the negative effect it can have on people when they’re in a delicate state.
If recovering addicts whose lives are in tatters log on and see a picture of a friend on holiday in the Caribbean, or driving a brand new car, the effect on their emotions can be devastating as it reinforces feelings of ‘Less Than’.
The emotional impact on women, in particular, can be very powerful, especially if they suffer from low self-esteem. If, for example, a woman is recovering from a food addiction and she goes online and sees lots of super-skinny women having a great time, there’s a danger she’ll compare herself in a negative light. If this happens it can trigger a food binge and the whole addictive process starts once again.
Addicts can become very obsessive in their behaviour – and there’s no doubt that for some people, the need to check Facebook or reach for their mobile phone to check messages becomes a compulsion. In the case of my friend and his BlackBerry on holiday, I’d say it borders on becoming an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
There are lots of words that are used to describe addiction, and one of them is ‘compulsivity’. So if you find yourself ‘compelled’ to check Facebook all the time, you might need to ask yourself why.
Another area in which modern technology impacts on addiction is through computer gaming. Rehab centres are starting to see more and more cases of young men, and in particular teenage boys, who become addicted to playing immersive computer games.
In real life, these people are often shy and lacking in confidence, but in the digital world they become masters of their own universe. They end up playing obsessively for hours on end, neglecting to eat or sleep, and sustaining themselves through the use of drugs to keep them going. It’s a destructive downward spiral.