Don't "Like" Facebook

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

I wrote this two months ago when the scandal regarding Facebook’s non-disclosed reasarch was making news.  Like most news, it disappeared quickly enough.  I found myself taking an unplanned sabbatical from writing and just now rediscover this not-a-blog.  I think the points are still important, so we’ll post it.

***********************

It’s all over the Internet today. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930    Facebook manipulating the news feed to see if they can manipulate you.  Oh, shame, shame, shame.  Facebook has shown its true colors today.  So, I’ve read some of the commentary, and most of it is thoughtful as well as thought provoking.

However, I will simplify.  There is absolutely no way to justify Facebook’s ethical lapse.  It just can’t be justified.  Twist yourself into a pretzel three times over, and there remains no way that any agreement to the Terms of Use or Privacy Policy can include attempting to manipulate user’s emotions.  I mean, for those of you who haven’t studied psychology, there is a long and nasty history of lying to people to engage them surreptitiously into research.  Ethical psychologists don’t do that anymore.  There just isn’t anything else that needs to be said about it.

Even more important, however, is the whole point of psychologists wanting to do this sort of research to prove….what, exactly.  To prove that if people hear happy things they tend to be happier.  I mean really.  When I see stuff like that I think of the definition I have sometimes been forced to offer for psychology:  The study of the bleeding obvious.

Unless (??) Facebook is hiding something else (and that surely might be the case,,,) there is no revelation at all in the research,  If they are hiding other intrusions into their member’s emotions, then again and again shame and more shame. 

Is it worse than the emotional manipulation of advertising and its accompanying music?

Several clients sent me links to two “studies” that were commented on in Sunday’s New York Times. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/cool-at-13-adrift-at-23/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_hh_20140624&nl=health&nlid=60565538&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/opinion/sunday/why-teenagers-act-crazy.html?_r=0

The most important point to notice in each of the articles is how silly they are.  Have you ever heard the adage that the coolest people in high school reached their pinnacle in high school?  Well, here is “research” to substantiate it.  Yippee??? 

And the other article about teens “acting crazy.”  Oh, come on!  Could someone please inform the author that teens in different times and places have acted (and do act) quite differently, so the facile conclusions about brain development don’t really hit the mark. Perhaps that research would benefit from a look at the context of US adolescence living in their world before making neurological assertions.  Perhaps someone might want to consider if the soldiers who landed on Normandy Beach only did so because they were neurologically not yet developed.  Character, courage, duty, patriotism, caring…

So, today is a day to remember that Facebook isn’t really your friend at all.  And to notice how empty so much psychological research really is.

There is such a thing as important psychological research.  I would hope to see more of it discussed in the media—and discussed intelligently not as though we’ve suddenly found a new way to slice bread.

And YAY for the mom I met while walking today who reminded her four-year-old daughter that she must be aware of other people as she is walking.  Well done, Mom!

What are you thinking about today?

This Is Not A Blog!

By Carol Maxym, Ph. D.

A kind friend gave me a lesson in blogging.  I am grateful.  However, the result is the clear knowledge that I am not writing a blog.  I thought I was which is why I decided what I wrote should be hosted on Blogspot.  I was wrong  Oh, well.

I understand that to do a blog properly, I am supposed to tell you the point of whatever I’m saying in the first paragraph.  Well, sometimes I will; other times I won’t because it won’t make sense.  I will always try to make sense.

I am told that blogwisdom states that if I expect you to spend five minutes reading here and think about what is being written, I am just plain old fashioned.  Ok.  I have more respect and trust in parents than that!  AND, although I recognize that we all have a bit less focus than we used to, I do not accept the premise that people are stupider than they used to be and can only mentally digest pablum.

If I am wrong and no one has the patience to stay on this page for more than 30 seconds, then I know you and I will never really communicate.  I wish you well.

I’ve been a parent for a really long time now, and I’ve worked professionally with parents for a long time.  When I published Teens in Turmoil, I broke the rule of ‘write vanilla, pretend to have all the answers (even though you know you don’t)’.  Indeed, had I followed that advice, more copies might have sold and perhaps I would be a TV pundit now.  I have no regrets.  I’ve had too many parents tell me that Teens in Turmoil was the only book they had read that actually helped them.  That’s more than enough for me.  I’ve no wish and no need to be the pundit who offers empty words every time there is a teen tragedy. 

So, this isn’t a blog.  This is a place on the Internet where you can come often to find thoughtful and thought-provoking articles.  It shouldn’t take you more than about five minutes to read any day’s article.  How long you spend thinking about it is your choice.

I hope you’ll leave comments, polite comments, even if you violently disagree.  I hope you’ll leave thoughtful comments that will help another parent or grandparent.

The help that helps (THTH—try saying it, just for fun). is what it is.  Perhaps one day I’ll come up with a new word like blarticle to give it a type casting. THTH is for thoughtful parents and grandparents, teachers, therapists.  If you are looking for the one magic bullet, this isn’t the right place for you.  (Well, if you think there is one, good luck finding it!) 

Most important changes start with the thinkers.  That’s because they’re thinking.  Their thoughts are transformed by others who actualize the thoughts.  I hope both groups will read here on a regular basis, pass it on to others whom they know to be thoughtful or to those who are the actualizers of thought. 

More than twenty years ago when I left one life and set out upon another, a dear lady, long since deceased, bade me good-bye and good wishes for my journey with this word:  “Godspeed.”