Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

"My name is Peter, and I'm a social media addict" Have you ever run into a friend on Facebook or Google+ who posts that they "need to take a break from social media"? That their faith in humanity has hit a new low? Or that they are seeing too much intolerance, trolling, etc.? Social media has made many aspects of relationships more accessible: Viewing posts from friends scattered around the world can make you feel more connected to them, while the ubiquity of social media can often make it easier to get in touch with someone than more traditional, “offline” means. But social media also helps fuel feelings of isolation and self-doubt. A 2012 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, for example, found that the longer people spent on Facebook each week, the more they agreed that everyone else was happier and had better lives. For some, that self-doubt can be countered in the same place it originates: through affirmin...

Everyone has their own individual style on social media. Here is mine, in a nutshell, for whatever it may be worth to you: First, my life is an open book, so virtually everything I post is public. The other reason I do this is because I think I have a message to deliver, and I want to be able to broadcast it effectively to a large audience. For circle management, I really only have two main circles -- "friends" - which is where everyone goes initially, and "close friends", which is a circle you earn your way into. More on this in a bit. When somebody circles me (which happens anywhere between 10 and 20 times a day), if time permits, I check your profile. A complete profile, with a photo of a real person, and at least a couple of posts so I can figure you out, will generally get me to circle you back. To get into my "close friends" circle - which is the only one I am really interested in, because that is the only one of my circles that has the notificat...

I find it disturbing that someone could let social media control their life to the point where it becomes so intolerable for them that they feel compelled to delete their entire profile and all of their content. But I just saw it happen to somebody whom I had regarded as a good friend. Google+ and other social media sites are tools. Used carefully and correctly, they can help you to build rewarding, meaningful relationships with real people, even though you are participating in a "virtual" world. Used improperly, they can make your life completely miserable and make you feel powerless to control your life and your destiny. When you have reached the point where you feel compelled to delete yourself and your online presence, you aren't just getting rid of the "bad" - you're throwing away all the good, too.  In other words, you may have sequestered yourself, but that doesn’t solve your problem, because all the personal issues that caused you to take this dr...