Pinnacle Psychology
(ISSN: 2360-9508)
http:/www.pjpub.org
© Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Research Article
Humanistic Antidotes for a Social Media Technology Addicted Society
Elliot Benjamin, Ph.D.
Accepted 30 August, 2015.
ABSTRACT
This article describes some of the serious growing concerns about the dangers of widespread social media technology addiction in U.S. society,
and virtually all over the world. These concerns are especially prominent regarding the excessive use of social media technology by young
people, as conveyed by the author through excerpts from various articles. Additionally, the author describes his own psychology teaching
experiences at a university in Maine that illustrates through small group class discussions the concerns students have about the excessive use
of social media technology, in the form of narrative research. Humanistic antidotes based upon Carl Rogers’ initial formulation of humanistic
psychology through engaging in genuine, caring, authentic relationships with others are given, in particular with college students in the context
of humanistic education, as practiced by the author. Inclusive of taking time to express one’s own deepest self inclinations, the author concludes
with a positive vision of how the benefits of extensive information and communication through social media technology can be maintained
while avoiding its negative dehumanizing addictive dangers .
Keywords:
humanistic psychology, social media technology addiction, humanistic education.
Introduction
Sometimes I wonder about how Carl Rogers (1961) and
Abraham Maslow (1962), the acknowledged founders of
humanistic psychology, or Rollo May (1969), who was a
predominant force in the promotion of existential psychology,
would respond to the extreme level of how much our entire
current U.S. society, including in particular young people, are
immersed in their social media technologies. There has been
an increasing alarm the past few years about the extent that
especially young people in our U.S. society-and virtually all
over the world-are becoming saturated with what has been
referred to as “social media addiction” (Addiction.com Staff,
2012; Anderson, 2015; Augenbraun, 2014; Barnes, 2015;
Golinkoff, 2015; Gordon, 2015; IANS, 2015; Johnson, 2015;
McNamee, 2014; Paddock, 2013; Whiteman, 2014).¹ There
has also been a growing movement to include a psychiatric
disorder with the title of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD)
listed in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-5)
(APA, 2013). Although Internet Addiction
Disorder is still not officially listed as a psychiatric disorder
in the DSM-V, the more narrowly defined Internet Gaming
Addiction was added in May, 2013 (APA, 2013; Augenbraun,
2014).
I have seen firsthand how young people appear to be addicted
to their social media technology from my teaching psychology
at Husson University the past 4 years. A number of my Husson
University Human Growth & Development and Introduction
to Psychology students frequently expressed in their essays
and group discussions how people no longer know how to
interact socially with each other, and how they are much more
comfortable in their online Facebook, SnapChat, etc.
relationships than in actually “talking” to people face-to-face.
Yes a number of my students somehow “know” that there is
something very wrong here, but I do not think they
understand the full context of what has taken place in regard
to mental health; i.e. the full context in regard to the
interpersonal emphasis of having genuine, caring, authentic
dialogue and relationships that is the essence of humanistic
psychology as formulated by Carl Rogers (1961). From my
experiences a few years ago as a community mental health
worker, I focused upon how much this kind of authentic
dialogue and relationships are needed by young people, in
particular young people with mental health issues, in our
society (Benjamin, 2011a). However, I am afraid that we as a
society are quickly moving past the point of being able to
experience anything approaching this kind of humanistic
relating, and virtually all the authors of the above articles on
social media technology addiction share my fears.
To relate to people authentically and caringly, one needs to
relate to one’s self as well. As conveyed by the above authors
on social media technology addiction, there appears to be a
widespread technological addiction that is taking over our
whole society and much of our whole world. Media technology
is in itself extremely impressive and useful, with extensive
benefits to extend and expand information and
communication. However, I think it is essential that people
control technology, and not the other way around. What I see
all around me is the billionaire technology entrepreneurs and
marketers successfully marketing their latest social media
technology-especially to children and adolescents-to a point
where our kids are growing up “vicariously,” i.e. being glued
to their computer technology gadgets as their favorite way of
passing time. Everything nowadays is quick, spontaneous, and
“online.” Whatever happened to “existential depth or awe”?
(Schneider, 2004). Going back a little further in time, I wonder
what Nietzsche (1885/2012) or Kierkegaard (1843/2013)
would say if they were able to see our current modern social
media technology society.
In this article I will describe what I have learned in regard to
college students’ perceptions of some of the adverse effects
of social media, from my psychology teaching experiences
over the past few years at Husson University in Bangor, Maine.
Although I did not initially set out to study this phenomenon,
the accounts of some of my students’ experiences with the
disturbing addictive aspects of over-indulgence in social
media that they have expressed in class discussions have had
much impact upon me. I will relate some of these accounts
from my students in this article, in the context of narrative
research (Chase, 2005; Clandinin, & Connelly, 2000;
Polkinghorne, 1988; Bochner, 2014).
One of the humanistic antidotes I convey in this article, in the
small context of my own college-level psychology teaching
experiences, is simply to give my students the assignment of
“talking” to each other, in small group discussions and whole
class sharings related to the topics of the psychology courses
Corresponding Author:
Elliot Benjamin, Ph.D.
Email: ben496@prexar.com
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 2
I teach at Husson University. This aspect of “sitting and talking
to each other” may sound very simple and natural, and in
many ways it certainly is. However, given what I will be
describing as my perspective of the social media technology
addiction that so many young people are caught up in, I
believe it is a significant event to have these young people
actually put away their technology when they are in their
classrooms and engage with each other in face-to-face
personal/academic authentic discussions. It is this context of
authentic engagement with each other and the intertwining
of feelings and “felt concerns” with the intellect, that falls
under the umbrella of humanistic education (Rogers, 1961,
1969)², that I think is essential to cultivate and develop to
balance out the extreme social media technology world that
we are all now living in.
Qualitative Research Methods: Narrative Research and
Autoethnography
A significant focus of my article is on what I have learned
about social media technology addiction from the informal
reports conveyed by some of my Husson University
psychology students in their small group class discussions.
Consequently the dominant research methods utilized in this
article is in the context of qualitative inquiry; in particular
narrative research and autoethnography (Bochner, 2014;
Chang, 2008; Chase, 2005; Denzin, 2014; Ellis, 2004, 2009;
Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Jones, Adams, & Ellis, 2013;
Polkinghorne, 1988; Robson, 2002; Wertz, 2011). As I
mentioned in the Introduction, I did not initially set out to
study this topic and therefore this is by no means a formal
academic study. However, there is much overlap between
what I learned from my students in their narrative reports,
the narrative articles I have read on social media addiction,
and the basic ingredients of narrative and autoethnographic
research.
Autoethnography was developed in the last few decades of
the 20
century, largely through the efforts of sociologist
Carolyn Ellis (2004, 2009), and focuses upon the social
dynamics and context that the researcher is investigating.
However, unlike strict ethnographic research that does not
include personal reflections of the researcher,
autoethnography extends participant observation research
through placing a significant reliance upon the feelings,
thoughts, perspectives, experiences, reflections, insights, and
personal stories of the researcher, and often involves a high
level of personal vulnerability in terms of revealing
emotional/private aspects of oneself (Benjamin, 2013;
Bochner, 2014; Chang, 2008; Denzin, 2014; Ellis, 2004, 2009;
Jones, Adams, & Ellis, 2013). Thus in this article I will be
describing my personal reflections and related experiences
in the context of the narrative reports of my Husson University
students regarding their experiences and perspectives
concerning our society’s excessive immersion in social media
technology. However, I will begin by briefly describing a
recent personal experience I had with my significant other at
a local Maine restaurant that I believe has some bearing on
the social media technology issue that I am currently writing
about.
Relevant Personal Experience at a Restaurant
A few months ago my significant other and I were having
dinner at a local truck stop/family diner restaurant. The place
was quite crowded with long tables of people noisily talking
to each other, and it took a long time for our waitress to come
over to us. My significant other in particular did not appreciate
how noisy it was, and we were both mildly annoyed at how
slow the service was. However, I then looked around me at all
the people busily chatting away, and all of a sudden I realized
that there did not appear to be one cell phone being used by
any customer in the entire restaurant! Now this is 2015, and
the restaurant is in the vicinity of Bangor, Maine-a fairly large
city by Maine standards. I was especially sensitive to our
society’s generic cell phone environment from my teaching at
Husson University in Bangor. Nearly all the students at Husson
are continuously glued to their cell phones wherever they
are-in their classrooms when they are able to (including
surreptitiously using them inside their desk tables), in the
cafeteria, walking to and from classes, etc.
After I conveyed my observations to my significant other, we
both viewed all the noisy chatter in the restaurant in a
different light. For we now realized that these people were
actually “talking” to each other and enjoying being with each
other. It felt like some kind of uncanny throwback to an earlier
time before our modern computer age, when people actually
conversed with each other instead of sitting next to each other
and conversing on their social media cell phones. We no
longer minded all the noisy chatter in the restaurant, and our
waitress came over to us soon enough and apologized for the
long delay.
College Education and Social Media Immersion
In my Husson University Human Growth & Development and
Introduction to Psychology classes, I have increasingly
structured my classes to maximize the amount of time my
students are required to “talk” to each other, in small group
discussions and whole class sharings. After a while this
became fairly natural to my students, but in retrospect I can
appreciate the atmosphere I created in my classroom in a
similar way to how I appreciated my restaurant observations,
as I described above. My students were required to put away
their cell phones in my classroom (though I have no doubt
that some of them managed to still surreptitiously use them)
and literally as soon as class ended- as they were walking out
the door-many of them were back in their online worlds.
As I initially entered the classroom, at least half of my students
were busily engaged on their cell phones, and I always would
begin class by telling them to put away their recreational
technology devices. However, generally for at least one class
each week my students would talk to each other, in the context
of engaging in structured small group discussions, many of
which were quite personally engaging and revealing.
If this were the 1970s, when I was my students’ age and in
college, none of this would even be worth mentioning. For it
was the sign of the times to “talk” to each other and question
anything and everything about our society. Young people were
immersed in everything from antiwar demonstrations to
psychedelic drugs to free sex to women’s liberation to Eastern
religions (Taylor, 1999). But today young people are,
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 3
generally speaking, much more focused on effectively taking
their place in our extremely materialistic society. One striking
research example of this is evidenced by the significant
increase in freshmen college students, compared to a few
decades ago, who rate being well off financially as extremely
important and the significant decrease in freshmen college
students who rate having a meaningful philosophy of life as
extremely important (Pryor
et. al, 2007). However, there are
always exceptions to the rule, and one recent noteworthy
exception is the Occupy movement, where for a relatively
short period of time it felt to me like it was the 1970s again
and young people “woke up” (Benjamin, 2011b, Chomsky,
2013).
“THE” Psychology and Technological Addiction
The status quo is quite powerful, and the forces that I believe
are entrapping people now from cradle to grave are nothing
less than what I consider to be our whole technologically
addicted society and essentially world. But how can I have the
gumption to think that I am right about our whole society
suffering from technological addiction? Well I “feel” this when
I am doing my pure mathematics-working on discovering
some new truth in the sublime world of “my friends that don’t
exist.”³ I also feel this when I am working like the devil to
master my piano songs to successfully accompany the singers
in my theatre group, or to play the piano part of my Beethoven
violin/piano sonata well enough to return for a week this
summer to my very intensive adult chamber music school⁴.
And I feel this right now as I am writing this essay. For if I were
addicted to continuously engaging in social media interactions
on Facebook or elsewhere in the cyber world, this would
gradually replace the self immersion time I need to give myself
in order to continue the development in my above three
creative worlds. And if I were addicted to continuously
engaging in social media interactions on Facebook, I believe
this would also negatively infringe upon my ability to have
quality time and continue to engage in my harmonious,
intimate relationship with my significant other. Somehow my
genuine self would gradually wear away, and it would be
replaced by some kind of addictive personality who just could
not get enough of what online relationships with others could
offer it. But the scary part of all this is that I believe this is
essentially what is overtaking our whole society-with young
people at the forefront.
To feel-to care-to mull things over-to contemplate-to take
time-what happens to all these qualities when one is in the
whirlwind of spending virtually all of one’s free time either
surfing the web or in online interactions with people one has
never met? I contend that the essential qualities of both
humanistic and existential psychology are being lost as we
progress through the 21
century, in the midst of all it’s
staggering array of social media technology temptations. But
let me reaffirm-it is not the technology itself that is at fault.
It is the human temptation and potential for addiction, that is
being used in exceptionally skillful and effective ways by our
society’s technology expert marketers, that I believe is the
source of the problem. It feels like a runaway horse to me,
with no way of it being stopped. It goes along with the climate
debacle that spells disaster for the whole human race, once
again with no apparent way of being stopped (Gore, 2007).
The Occupy movement made a brave statement against
corporate greed (Benjamin, 2011b, Chomsky, 2013), and I
agree with the Occupy movement that it is precisely this greed
that has caused many of the ills of our society. Essentially the
greed that is the wheels of our super-capitalistic society serves
only the prospect of making more money-not the well-being
of our children or the propagation of the human species.
But if there is nothing that can be done about our
technologically addicted society, then why am I writing this
essay? Well-I am writing this essay because it is my basic
nature to express what I think and feel-which is how I
philosophize. I’ve mentioned how our social media technology
addicted society goes against the essential cores of humanistic
and existential psychology. I also believe it goes against the
essential core of transpersonal psychology. For transpersonal
psychology is engaged with the-for a lack of a better word-
“spiritual” component of what it means to be human
(Friedman & Hartelius, 2013). And I think that being
authentically “spiritual”-or engaging in deep self explorations
about life and existence-most definitely requires that one
spend extended time with one’s self, pondering all these
mysterious elements of life and the world. Engaging in
continuous online social interactions without taking sufficient
time to experience being alone with one’s own self on a
regular basis, does not go along with this kind of deep self
immersion that I think is at the core of transpersonal
psychology. I would like to coin the acronym THE psychology,
which stands for Transpersonal/ Humanistic/Existential
psychology. Using this acronym, one can summarize my main
argument in this essay by saying that our technological
addicted society is seriously undermining the ability of people
to engage in the essential cores of THE psychology. And from
my experiences of teaching psychology at the college level the
past few years, this undermining is extremely obvious in the
college classroom.
Anecdotal College Student Reports of Detrimental Aspects
of Social Media
In the various small group discussions that have taken place
in my Husson University psychology courses the past few
years, there have been a few communications that I think are
particularly revealing in regard to what can be construed as
the over-indulgence and/or misuse of social media
technology. To begin with, one of my Introduction to
Psychology students described someone in his high school
who was continuously engaged in online Facebook
communications, presenting the image of someone who was
exceedingly friendly, extroverted, and comfortable in various
social situations. However, my student was quite surprised
when he would see this same “online socially comfortable”
person walk down the school corridor every day with his head
down, avoiding any social contact with anyone and not even
responding when people would say hello to him. This opens
up the question of how could someone exhibit such
completely opposite personality characteristics when
interacting socially online with people compared to face-toface
social interactions? The answer was not difficult for my
students to come up with, as they easily described how one
puts on a façade or “persona” (Jung, 1961) when interacting
socially online, which can be quite different from one’s actual
personality when dealing with people face-to-face. Thus
someone can learn to be very “popular” online while becoming
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 4
less and less capable of relating to people face-to-face in any
kind of meaningful way.
This kind of example of contrasting online and face-to-face
personalities was repeated frequently in my Human Growth
& Development classes. One anecdotal report this past
semester that further reinforces this came from a student who
described her 11-year-old sister as being on her cell phone
virtually all the time, wherever she went and whatever she
did. This included any kind of social outing, family dinner,
athletic event, etc. But what particularly disturbed my student
was the complete lack of interest and ability her sister had in
being responsive to any face-to-face interaction that anyone
tried to engage her in. My student’s sister would answer
face-to-face questions with quick short Yes or No responses
and immediately get back to her much more interesting online
world in her cell phone. My student described how her
personal relationship with her sister was now virtually
nonexistent, and how her other family members felt the same
way.
And once again we can ask: What exactly is going on here? Is
“virtual reality” just another form of social reality? Although
some of my students would say this is the case, the majority
of them have become quite concerned that kids are growing
up these days with an overindulgence of social media
technology pervading every aspect of their lives.
Another example from my Human Growth & Development
class this past semester strikingly demonstrates the
phenomenon of people “hiding” in their online social media
worlds rather than “talking” to people who are actually
physically present. My student described the pattern of
challenging communications her roommate would engage her
in.
As it turns out, her roommate would wait for my student to
leave the room, and then immediately text her to convey
whatever particular problem she was having concerning my
student. This was her roommate’s way of avoiding the “messy”
personal interactions that face-to-face communication with
my student would involve, as it was so much easier and more
“efficient” to just communicate these things in a text message
since my student was not physically there to respond. Is there
anything wrong with this? There certainly is, according to my
student. It felt “inhuman” to her, and I must agree. Once again
we see the phenomenon of people bypassing face-to-face
relating, in particular when it involves some challenging
communications, in favor of the easier and relatively nonpersonal
form of an online text message.
The most recent example of what I have experienced as social
media technology addiction occurred when students in my
most past semester Husson Human Growth & Development
class were giving their end of semester class project
presentations.
As I mentioned above in a parenthetical remark, although I
always told my students at the beginning of class to put away
their recreational technology devices, I had no doubt that
some students were using their cell phones surreptitiously
inside their desks. In general this did not feel to me like it was
worth making an issue of during my class lectures, as it
involved just one or two students on an occasional basis,
although I did confront some students when I saw them doing
this when they were in their small group discussion. However,
when I was in the audience and observing two students
blatantly using their cell phones inside their desks during a
number of my students’ end of semester class presentations,
I knew I needed to deal with the situation. I wrote notes to
these students and made a general announcement about how
rude and disrespectful this was at the beginning of our next
class, which was the last class of the semester. This solved the
problem on the surface, as no student dared to surreptitiously
use his or her cell phone inside a desk during the class
presentation in our last class. But this whole situation made
quite the impression on me. For these same students who
made such inappropriate use of their cell phones during our
class previously had been quite vocal about the misuse of
social media technology during our small group discussion
related to this topic, quite recently. The last class presentation
was fittingly on the topic of the benefits and dangers of social
media technology, and I was glad that my class had ended with
this topic. But it struck me very forcefully how young people
in our society have become so far removed form anything
approaching Carl Rogers’ (1961) humanistic way of people
relating to each other.
There were a number of other examples described by many
students in these small group class discussions the past few
years that highlight the discrepancy between relating socially
online and face-to-face. Some of these examples strike me as
being quite bizarre, in spite of the fact that they are apparently
becoming increasingly more “normal” in our social media
technology society. For instance: families living under the
same roof and choosing to send each other text messages to
communicate rather than actually “talk” to each otherincluding
husbands and wives; students coming to class
before the instructor arrives and silently being immersed in
their social media world on their cell phones instead of talking
to each other; young children sitting immobile in front of their
computers to vicariously play their computer games or engage
in their online social media communications instead of getting
physical exercise playing with other children; college-age
people spending 12 hours a day immersed in their social
media technology, as disclosed by one of my Human Growth
& Development discussion groups. The list goes on and on,
and we haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to
how all this social media technology immersion relates to
family interaction, childhood obesity, unstable financial
security through internet marketing, car accidents due to the
use of cell phones when driving, etc.
Excerpts from Research and Articles about Social Media
Technology Addiction
The descriptions I have given from some of my Husson
University small group discussions relating to the extreme
immersion of social media technology in our society are
actually quite similar to many of the experiences described in
the articles I listed above on social media addiction. Some
relevant excerpts of these articles are as follows¹.
Five years ago, Facebook was rarely mentioned in the context
of a marriage ending. But now it has become commonplace
for clients to cite social media use as a reason for divorce….A
recent study by Oxford University of 24,000 married
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 5
European couples found that the more they read about other
people’s exciting lives on social media, the more likely they
were to view their own with disappointment, leading to a
poorer sex life….So foreplay, emotional touch, fondling and
intense feelings count as much as a physical stimulant. With
smartphones in the bedroom, the emotional togetherness
that initiates sex is gone. (IANS, 2015, pp. 1-2)
A typical day for me starts out with me turning off the alarm
on my smartphone and immediately taking instant messages,
emails, status updates…you get the the picture. Every like,
every personal message, even the fun of interacting with
friends without having to actually, you know, be anywhere
near them….we’re so involved in “connecting” that we seem
to neglect really
connecting-far-reaching, pervasive effects in
the real world (that’s the stuff you see when you put your
phone away from pretty much everything)….We’re becoming
worse people; less rounded, more self-righteous, less
understanding and doing it to ourselves. (Gordon, 2015, p. 11)
You can be connected to the world around you twenty-four
hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year…. Over time
though, this connection can slowly become a need….Having
an online personality is easier for some people and their social
and emotional needs are quickly fulfilled. The amount of time
spent is rarely questioned and this is where the danger of a
possible addiction can come into play. (Addiction.com Staff,
2012, p. 6).
Their analysis showed that cell phone use was negatively
linked to GPA- the higher the cell phone use the lower the
grades-and positively linked to anxiety-higher cell phone use
was linked to higher anxiety. (Paddock, 2013, p. 2)
In our society, I occasionally feel as though we spend more
time documenting our time spent hanging out by trying to get
pictures and hashtags just right than we do actually talking
and connecting with one another. We are rarely ever fully
present in one place. We are out with our friends, but are more
focused on finding the best lighting for our selfies than
actually engaging in conversation. We are out to dinner, but
instead of savoring every flavor, we are compulsively making
sure to document it on SnapChat, Instagram, and Facebook.
We feel compelled to show up for our audience. We are
always connected, yet so fragmented. While becoming
increasingly connected we are becoming disconnected from
ourselves.
Because of the social media epidemic, it is also my observation
that time spent among friends is overshadowed by agendas.
It often feels contrived and staged. Social media breeds and
feeds shallow connections, and I find myself hungry for
deeper, more meaningful connections now more than ever.
We are starving ourselves while gorging on our incessant
compulsion to perform. Worst of all, it is a viciously
contagious epidemic….While at a coffee shop recently, I
observed two girlfriends who snapped at least 30 pictures, in
the span of about 30 minutes, all the while discussing their
social media lives. During their hour of time together, I lost
count of how many times I heard them reference Instagram,
SnapChat, and Twitter, for it dominated 80 percent of their
conversation. Most interestingly, they did not part ways
without one of them compulsively burying her face in her
phone and editing their new pictures. They were seated next
to each other in silence, one staring at the other as she edited
like a maniac. (Johnson, 2015, p. 12)
This is what I think is wrong with a social media obsessed
world. We can’t seem to enjoy something for what it is without
wanting everyone to know we’re enjoying it. We can’t dance
to the encore at our favorite band’s concert because we’re too
busy capturing it for our snap story, to make sure that people
know we’re doing something exciting. We can’t dig into a
beautiful meal before snapping pictures of it first, to make
sure that people know we are something delicious. We can’t
have a great hair day or wear something cute without taking
a photo and sharing it, making sure people know we looked
good that day. We can’t just be. (Barnes, 2015, p. 10)
Luo says long-established protocols for talking therapies for
addiction can be worthwhile components of a treatment plan
for Internet addiction. For example, he notes cognitive
therapy and motivational interviewing have been proven to
be especially useful for changing unhealthy behaviors….Luo
notes that potential treatments have to work in their own
cultural contexts, and what works for one group may not work
for another. The Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment
Center in Beijing, China, for example, treats addicted teens
with military-like exercise, and discipline, as well as
medication and other therapies, which may not go over so
well in other countries. (Augenbraun, 2014, pp. 3-4)
In India, the launch of the clinic appeared timely-in the same
week the Nimhans newspapers were reporting a case of a
13-year-old who hanged herself after her mother removed
her Facebook account….In Singapore, 87% of a population of
5.4 million own smartphones….China itself has over 300
Internet addiction centers. (McNamee, 2014, pp. 2, 4)
A related topic to what these excerpts powerfully convey as
our society’s dehumanizing social media technology addiction
that I always include in my required psychology small group
class discussions is something I will briefly discuss next:
media violence.
Media Violence, Human Caring/Sensitivity, and Real
World Violence
In an earlier article (Benjamin, 2012), I discussed the
relationship of playing violent video games and watching
media violence to real world violence. As I conveyed in my
article, although there is much alarming research that
demonstrates a high correlation between factors related to
media violence and real world violence, there is also research
that concludes there does not exist a significant correlation
between these factors (Benjamin, 2012). In both my Human
Growth & Development and Introduction to Psychology
classes, the vast majority of my students do not think that
playing violent video games or watching violence in the media
in general leads to real world violence, in spite of the alarming
research that their textbooks describe about this. What most
of my students think is that the factor of parental involvement
is the crucial issue; i.e. parents overseeing their children’s
watching violent television shows and playing violent video
games, and explaining to their children that these recreational
pastimes should not be reproduced in real life. I agree with
my students that the parent involvement factor is significant
in regard to the connection between media violence and real
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 6
world violence, and I also have conveyed to them that the
factor of mental disturbance is likely a very significant factor
in regard to the above high correlation (Benjamin, 2012).
However, I believe that the issue here goes much deeper and
is related to the growing alarm that our society is becoming
addicted to social media technology.
As many of my students expressed their concerns during our
social media technology small group discussions, as described
above, people nowadays “hide” behind their online Facebook,
SnapChat, etc. social images, and are losing the ability to
related to people face-to-face in personal and social ways
(Barnes, 2015; Gordon, 2015; Johnson, 2015). As one of my
Introduction to Psychology online CALCampus⁵ students
described in her excellent end of semester paper, the factors
of being personally detached from people and
watching/participating in so much vicarious media violence
may very well lessen the bonds between “make-believe”
violence and real world violence. And I agree with my online
student about this. The further removed our society becomes
from Carl Rogers’ humanistic visions of people personally,
caringly, and genuinely relating to each other, the easier it is
for at least some people-and it may very well be especially
some people with mental health disturbances-to commit real
world violence. For the online images of people are being
transformed from the real flesh and blood human beings that
we all are, to nothing more than quick and spontaneous
“virtual” interactions that are becoming increasingly devoid
of any of the ingredients of THE (transpersonal, humanistic,
existential) psychology that relate to depth and meaning of
life.
My Personal Philosophy to Overcome Temptation of
Technological Addiction
What are my own personal antidotes for living in this
whirlwind instantaneous information overload technology
society of ours while trying to retain my own essence? My own
personal antidotes are the same as they virtually always have
been-I absolutely need to continue doing what makes me who
I am. This means I continue to do my own mathematics, play
the piano, and philosophize (Benjamin, 2006). My three
worlds of mathematics, piano, and psychology/philosophy
have increasingly grown and extended from when I initially
described them as part of my “natural dimension” (Benjamin,
2013). But this is a good thing, and I am happy to see myself
extended through my mathematics publications, playing the
piano in chamber music groups and with a theatre company,
and publishing various essays in psychology and philosophy.
And the balance to my own creative self development and
pursuits is my harmonious intimate relationship with my
significant other for over 10 years, which is also an essential
part of what I originally envisioned as my “natural dimension”
(Benjamin, 2013). This intimate relationship context for me
is likewise developing and extending, as we have recently
bought a house together and plan on getting married next
year. And these are my own personal remedies for living in
what I, in agreement with R. D. Laing (1967) and Eric Fromm
(1955), consider to be our insane society (Benjamin, 2013).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is apparent that social media technology is a
double-edged sword. Undoubtedly there are many significant
advantages of being able to communicate and obtain
information about virtually anything in the world very rapidly.
However, there are alarming growing concerns about the
harmful addictive aspects of this pervasive technology, as can
be seen in the sample of excerpts from articles I have included
above, from the above descriptions I have given of my own
teaching experiences at a university in Maine, and from the
movement to include technology addiction as a diagnostic
category by the American Psychiatric Association to
supplement the Internet Gaming Disorder that was included
in 2013 in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders
(APA, 2013; Augenbraun, 2014).
However, there are also humanistic antidotes that I believe
have the potential of at least minimizing the detrimental
addictive effects of excessive social media technology use.
The humanistic antidotes that I have described all fit into the
guiding basic principles of Carl Rogers’ humanistic
psychology; i.e. engaging in genuine, caring, authentic
relationships with others. More specifically, in the arena of
humanistic education this means putting intention into
ensuring that students engage with one another in face-to-face
personal/academic meaningful discussions. In the arena of
parenting-in particular parenting of teenagers and young
adults-this means finding ways of maintaining the essential
bonds of the parent/child relationship that involves two-way
communication with a focus on caring, listening, and
authenticity. And perhaps most important of all, it is essential
that one maintains one’s own authentic self; i.e. to engage
oneself with one’s deepest self expressions and yearnings, and
perhaps have a sense of what one’s “calling” in life is. I believe
that if these humanistic antidotes were put into place on a
widespread scale, then social media technology would not
become a dangerous dehumanizing addiction, but rather
would serve as a very useful device to rapidly acquire
information and enhance communication all over the world
without the accompanying detrimental effects that I have
described in this article. Put more simply, we would control
our social media technology, and not the other way around.
Notes
1. See my recent article
Do We Live in a Social Media Technology
Addicted Society?
(Benjamin, 2015), which includes the article
excerpts described in the present article.
2. Humanistic education is based upon the work of humanistic
psychologists, in particular Abraham Maslow (1969) and Carl
Rogers (1961, 1969), and involves empathy, caring about
students, and genuineness on the part of the learning facilitator.
The basic principles of humanistic education include choice and
control, felt concern, the whole person, self evaluation, and the
teacher as a facilitator. For more information about humanistic
education, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_education
3. See my essay
My Conception of Integral (Benjamin, 2006), and
my essay On a
Natural Dimension of Mathematics in my book
The Creative Artist, Mental Disturbance, and Mental Health
(Benjamin, 2013).
4. My adult chamber music school is Kneisel Hall in Blue Hill,
Maine; see
www.kneiselhall.org As it turned out, due to a death
in the family I did not participate in my adult chamber music
week this summer, but I am planning on doing so again next
summer.
5. For more information about CALCampus see
www.calcampus.edu
Pinnacle Psychology (ISSN: 2360-9508) Page 7
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