Elizabeth Bernstein, writing in the Wall Street Journal, astutely observes that the promise of Facebook and Twitter—to bring people closer by putting their lives online, with up-to-the-minute updates—can have the opposite effect.  Many people, she writes, use “friending” and “tweeting” as a surface and synthetic way to talk about the fun outings they’re planning or the fact that they just closed another sale at work. 
 
“I’m tired of loved ones—you know who you are—who claim they are too busy to pick up the phone, or event write a decent email,” Bernstein writes, “yet spend hours on social-media sites, uploading photos of their children or parties, forwarding inane quizzes . . . or tweeting about their latest whereabouts.”
 
That’s just the beginning from a psychological point of view.  Facebook and other social-media “destinations” not only provide cover from more genuine and intimate human interactions, they can encourage people to present themselves as actors in their own semi-made-up life stories.  They can remove people from reality, heightening their narcissism (which we all have, to a lesser or greater extent), making them not only self-obsessed, but intent on projecting a multi-media fictional representation of how happy and successful and social they are. 
 
As Marshall McLuhan wrote, the medium is the message.  There is no avoiding the fact that social-media sites call upon members to use a keyboard, hard drive and computer screen, together with photos, video and words to create evolving autobiographies for “broadcast” on the Web.  This very process creates a kind of dual existence, consisting of one’s real life and one’s life on-line.  The online version can pull people away from their deepest thoughts and emotions and relationships—from what constitutes their real selves—into the abbreviated or evasive or attention-grabbing kind that can be packaged for mass consumption. 
 
This is more than an academic concern.  It’s a human and clinical concern.  The distance between a person’s contrived self and real self is the growing place for anxiety and depression.  Today’s social-media sites can expand that distance until, distracted too long from the noble and, ultimately, healing battle to understand oneself and others for real, swells of genuine emotion feel like tidal waves. 
 
Indeed, I have already worked with several clients for whom using social media sites has, in and of itself, coaxed them away from the truth about their lives, toward a kind of technologically intoxicated vacation from it.  Together, we struggle to take the journey back.
 
Anatole Broyard, the late and great NY Times book critic, once wrote, “Inside every patient, there’s a poet trying to get out.”  We could now add that behind every Facebook profile, there’s a real life story just waiting to be told.  
 

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s Web site at livingthetruth.com.

Dear Mr. Jackson:

The occasion of your child’s death is a moment when all parents, including me, offer you every wish for strength and God’s healing power in the face of your loss.  Any father or mother can sense the tragedy it is to lose a son or daughter, yet no one who has not suffered such a loss can truly know your pain.

I would write no more than this were it not for the fact that you have used the occasion of your son’s passing and the attendant publicity to also promote your own business ventures, including your new record label.  This makes me feel it important, as a psychiatrist with access to the media, to reach out to you, with other parents and their adult children “listening” in. 

The foundation of our nation assures each person in this great country of certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Great leaders and courageous soldiers have safeguarded these rights for our citizens, and they would make a decent Bill of Rights for parents raising children, too.  Fathering a child, you see, means far more than participating in a child’s conception and witnessing his birth; it means doing everything possible to optimize that child’s life.  This requires many acts of love and self-sacrifice. It pays immeasurable dividends in the growing self-confidence and autonomy you witness developing in the child you care so much about.

Somehow, perhaps because of pain suffered in your own early life experience, you stole that God-given potential for healthy development from your son.  You have admitted lashing him with a belt or a switch when he failed to perform dance steps to your standards.  According to him, you called him ugly when acne affected him as a teenager.  You brutalized him by placing your own pathologic need for control and for “success” above his needs for security and comfort and self-esteem.  In a very real way, you buried enough of his love for himself that he was no longer comfortable with his race or age or sexuality or even his great fortune.  Trying to please a father who beats you with a belt for missing a dance step will do that to you.

Now, even when saying goodbye to your son, you think of yourself and your business.  You are deprived of a purer life and love.  This makes me feel badly for you, but feel worse for the son you injured so deeply. 

Some will see you only as a monster.  I know that monsters are made through cruelties suffered in life; they never spring fully-formed onto the planet.

In your quiet moments, I hope that you can dig up the roots of the emotional and physical violence you visited upon your child.  One of the wonderful things about still being on the planet is that you always have some chance to win back the potential for real humanity buried inside you.  

Here’s a hint:  Success or failure in becoming human isn’t measured in record sales or reflected in the lenses of television cameras.  You have to look much, much deeper.

For years I have lived my life compromising — always trying not to upset the status quo, and I wondered how long I could go on like this. Years ago, I was respected as a medical professional for my scientific writings. Now-a-days, I am quoted as a “blogger” (Dr. Manny, a blogger said…) But I guess that’s the price you pay for being in the media.

This morning, I read a story about a lovely couple in England who wanted to adopt a child, but was denied because the potential father was “too fat.” Medical advisors for the adoption agency expressed concerns over 37-year-old Damien Hall’s health when their risk assessments concluded that his height of 6-feet, 1-inch tall, weight of 343 pounds and BMI of 42 deemed him morbidly obese, and therefore not eligible to adopt at the present time. Now I know my words don’t matter that much anymore, but when is the madness going to end?

Today I saw a beautiful child with Down syndrome in my office. He couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. So sweet and kind, I was moved by his presence. His innocence was refreshing, and he unknowingly turned my day around. I could only hope to make such a simple difference in someone else’s life. And these hopeful parents in England, were trying to do just that.

Even though I write these short blogs, I hope that someone out there begins to realize, that people can make a difference, and certain rules must be forgotten. As Dale Carnegie used to say, “The perfect way to conquer worry is to pray.”

Well that got your attention, didn’t it?

I remember a time when scientific studies were analyzed, discussed and reproduced in the scientific community before they ever entered the streamlined media world. Why? Because we wanted the results to be looked at and to determine whether or not the research was well-designed and had clinical applications. But nowadays, it doesn’t matter how small the study or how poorly designed the research is — if it has a catchy headline, the media can’t wait to throw it out there for all the world to see.

Now I do not totally blame the media — after all I am part of the problem, too. But these days it seems many medical journals, in an effort to get more recognition and readability, are all but glad to inform media outlets of their “breaking news” stories.

Yes — as they say in the media world — good content is priceless, and if it has a good headline, even better! That is why many people feel confused about the reports they read on a daily basis. One day coffee is good for you; the next day it’s not! Are these preliminary studies really helping our readers?

Here are some of today’s favorites:

• Woman’s Leg Won’t Quit Growing
• Chemical in Gut May Help Fight Obesity
• Pig Organs: Ready for Humans at Last?
• Top 4 Foods to Boost Your Memory
• 21st Century Plague Discovered by Scientists

Now don’t these headlines make you want to read more?

Often, writers even have the same standard formula for reporting these studies prematurely. They usually ask an expert and the classic response goes something like this: “We’re all excited about the findings, but more research needs to be done.”

So I guess tomorrow I’ll talk about a new exciting study, but I’ll try to get all the facts first.