Blame-Shift

Early last year, a study at Stanford University showed that Facebook usage leads to depression and misery because of the overwhelming positive bent in other people's status postings. Because Facebook gives everyone the opportunity to personally handcraft their image and post things that reflect favourably on them, while minimizing negatives, the average user often thinks that the lives of others are far more satisfactory than his/her own. Most of the articles on this study have titles such as "Facebook Is Making Us Miserable" or Is Facebook Making Us Sad?". But while I think the study is probably quite accurate, the insinuation that it's Facebook's fault is not.

Facebook can't make you do anything. Granted, there may not yet be a "dislike" button. Granted, Facebook is accessible to any self-glorifying person who wants to use it. But Facebook is an inanimate being. It can't force you to be discontent with your own life because someone else's looks better. And it can't force you to post all things in the most flattering light, either. Facebook is used by people. People can be discontent. People can be deceptive, intentionally or not.

And WE are those people.

Facebook may be a tool that squeezes our hearts, causing sour juice to overflow, but it doesn't put the sour juice into our hearts. It merely reveals what was there to begin with. If we are dissatisfied because our friends seem to be always having fun, because their children say the cutest things and never seem to throw all-day temper tantrums, because they obviously have the ability to make birthday cakes look store-bought, make amazing gifts from scratch, and handle a 30-kid party all in the same day, we shouldn't blame Facebook... or our friends, for that matter. If we are dissatisfied with our lot in life, it is because we don't believe that God loves and cares for us in the best way possible and gives us exactly what we really need. It is because we think we deserve better, when we really deserve far, far worse. If we are struggling with discontentment and misery because of comparison with our friends' Facebook lives, we need to humble ourselves before God, remember what we really deserve, and be grateful that instead, we have received unfathomable mercy at the cross. And instead of being miserable, we need to earnestly seek the Spirit's help and strive to "rejoice with those who rejoice".

But we also need to recognize that WE may be part of the problem of carefully planned Facebook images. I might be tempting my friends to discontentment by the things I choose to post and the way in which I post them. Does my Facebook wall reflect only the best experiences of my life? Do I tend to post things in an overly positive light? I'm not saying we should all go post miserable things on Facebook, or that it is wrong to share your excitement about something with others. But we love the adoration of man, and so it is very easy to post things (and pictures) that make our lives look great, and not very tempting at all to post about how much we feel we're failing in our parenting, or our homemaking, or our job. In fact, when we do post about the bad day, most of us Christians feel a certain pressure to end it with a "But praise the Lord! I'm still happy!" Really? Are we being totally honest? If we are, that's certainly something to praise God for. But if it's been a bad day and I just want to crawl into bed and moan, I shouldn't save face by putting the negative in a falsely positive light. Maybe it would be better to skip the details of the day and just post a good lamenting Psalm longing for God to strengthen me in my weakness. Maybe one of my friends who's also had a bad day will be comforted by the Scripture and encouraged to plead with God for mercy, instead of feeling like they just don't measure up as a Christian undergoing trial.

If, on the other hand, we're posting good news, we need to be careful not to exaggerate, and we also need to beware of pride as a motivation for our posts. Am I just posting this to prove that my life really is great (even if it is), or to somehow compete with my friends' posts? Social media easily becomes a game of one-upmanship, and that's a game we don't want to play!

And of course, the best way to get an accurate view of our friends' lives, and let them have an accurate view of our own, is to spend time with each other in real life situations. Facebook can be used to enhance our friendships, but it is no substitute for the real thing!