Facebook steals your joy

My children have given me good news recently. Academic wins, victories in hockey tournaments, they were even a little excited to have been accepted to the university. They also lived through difficult times and other bittersweet. We have gone through many past games, disappointments and unwashed dishes. If you are my friend, or even someone who knows my mom and we start a friendly conversation in the row of the store, I would love to talk to you about it. I may even show you pictures.

However, I will not publish these events on social networks because I have been trying for a while and have come to a simple conclusion after receiving feedback from friends, family and friends. Known knowledge with emoji and exclamation points instead of hugs and exclamations of astonishment really: it's not fun and I do not want to do it anymore.

I'm not the only one to have decided to leave social networks. Although nearly two-thirds of US adults use Facebook, the way we use it has changed in recent years. About 40% of adult users say they have suspended their study of Facebook for several weeks or more, and 26% say that researchers have removed the application of their phone over the past year.

Some have changed behavior due to Facebook's laxity in protecting users' data: more than half of adult users have adjusted their privacy settings last year. Others seem to care more about how they make you feel and act. In any case, leaving social networks is a way to preserve the privacy of your family.

"I've really seen a shift towards less shared sharing," said Julianna Miner, Associate Professor of Global and Community Health at George Mason University and author of the forthcoming Raising a Smart Screen Screen: Embrace Good and avoid the bad digital era. The writer added, "It's hard to say if the changes are a response to a security breach or if the result is that people are tired of sharing."

Even Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, seems to suspect that this is partly because of the second: after experiencing what it means to live our lives in a larger cyber environment for more than a decade, many of Among us are ready to return to the most intimate groups in which humans have flourished for a long time. In a recent blog post, Zuckerberg announced the company's plan to focus on private conversations and small communities on the platform. Interacting on Facebook, he writes, "will become a fundamentally more private experience": less "public square", more "room of the house".

This is a turning point that I have already chosen to make in my case and since I have done so, I wonder why I agreed to start by speaking on my personal platform. The more I am willing to share good news and personal challenges with my friends, the more I realize that the digital world has never offered me the same satisfaction or support. Instead, I ended up losing the sight of my friends' faces that lit up and I often wished everyone in my personal network would be aware of what was happening. a disappointment or a complaint.

"There is a lot of evidence that interpersonal interactions in person produce a stronger neural response than anything we can do online," said Miner. "We value empathy online, but not so much, it takes about six virtual cuddles to match a real hug."

The time we spend looking for these virtual cuddles can take us out of the world we live in and bring us back to our phones (which, of course, is the main reason why many networks offer such feedback).

"In the end, we are not just giving social media the time to publish something," said Stacey Steinberg, badociate director of the Child and Family Center at Levin Law School. University of Florida and author of an article. on the topic entitled "Sharenting: Children's privacy in the era of social media".

"The interaction does not end the minute one presses to share," says the expert. "Part of our mind is waiting for answers, which equates to a little distraction that takes us away from everything we do." Once we publish the picture of our son or our daughter doing the dance in fashion, our focus is no longer entirely focused on watching it dance. Part of our mind is in the digital environment, waiting for our pleasure to be validated.

This validation may be satisfactory, but the emotion is fleeting, like the sudden increase in our glucose level when we replace a real breakfast with a Pop-Tart. However, seeing your mother's reaction to the same video gives you another kind of pleasure. "I see parents sharing a different way than I did five years ago," says Steinberg. "We are looking for smaller audiences and ways to share only with our close friends."

He also warned us that even public updates that seem harmless leave a lasting mark. "One of your children may be a baseball star, but he decides to change his sport and relatively strange people ask him what his batting average is," she says. "Or if one of your children decides to go to a university and then changes, the decisions are complex, life is complex, it is not easy to do it." apply the Marie Kondo technique to your Facebook page. "

There are exceptions. Facebook shines as a connection and professional promotion space, of course. For those of us who have children with special needs, this can be an invaluable support community. In addition, in the case of the worst news – such as calamities, illnesses or deaths – Facebook can help users quickly share updates, ask for help and share obituaries and memories.

Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Targeted Life in a Noisy World, suggests that when we evaluate how we use social media tools at our disposal, we wonder if these tools are the best way to do this. achieve our goals. . In this case, the answer is yes.

But what about sharing personal moments, talking, getting good advice on the challenges of parenting while feeling supported in our most difficult moments? I've discovered that face-to-face contact and being embraced in real life give me far more than anything that a screen could give me. Why deceive depriving oneself of these pleasures by the euphoria that pbades many tastes?

Recently, I met an acquaintance while waiting for my order at a local restaurant. "Congratulations," he says with pleasure. I racked my brains. He had sold a book that week, but the information was not public. I was not pregnant, I did not have a new job and I did not win the lottery. My ability to order takeaway orders was not really commendable and, in fact, I may have ordered too much, as I usually do. I wanted to talk more about this good news, but what were we talking about? Fortunately, he continued, "Your son must be very excited."

Oh, yes, my eldest son … he was admitted to the university. He was happy, we and I told him, but how did he find out?

My son told his daughter, who is his partner at school, and his daughter told him.

KJ Dell's Antonia is the author of "How to Be a Happier Parent" and "The Chicken Sisters", a novel to be published shortly.

* Copyright: c.2019 New York Times Press Service