Social networks such as facebook, myspace and twitter promote loneliness and depression.

When neuroscientist and Oxford Professor Susan Greenfield warned the British House of Lords about the alleged dangers of social networking, she touched off a firestorm that is still smoldering. 

Greenfield made several points, some that have been misrepresented in subsequent news, and others that are clearly debatable – but it’s beyond dispute that she hit a nerve, and her words are likely a foretelling of a larger debate still to come. 

At issue is whether Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Twitter and all other social networking sites, gadgets and tools are adversely affecting our brains–more specifically, children’s brains–and infantilizing our relationships by diminishing our ability to interact in meaningful ways. Additional arguments tagging along with these include whether social networking is promoting loneliness, which is in turn negatively affecting our health. 

To further explore the arguments for and against Greenfield’s position, I asked four authors who have addressed this topic from different angles to respond to the controversy. 

Does Facebook Make Us Lonely?

In this month’s Atlantic, Stephen Marche offers a detailed examination of the current state of social life in America. Encompassing where we live to how we live and who we live with while taking a backward glance at history along with a critical eye toward the present, Marche aims to show how American society is breaking down. According to Marche, loneliness is the result of that breakdown.

Marche asks a lot of great questions about Facebook’s role in creating, or at least contributing to, the loneliness epidemic in America.

Pointing out that our “web of connections” has “grown broader but shallower,” Marche notes that we are more isolated than ever before, and also more accessible than ever imagined.

At the same time, “loneliness and being alone are not the same thing, but both are on the rise. We meet fewer people. We gather less. And when we gather, our bonds are less meaningful and less easy.”

What are some of the thought-provoking questions Marche is asking?

•                Is Facebook part of the separating or part of the congregating; is it a huddling-together for warmth or a shuffling-away in pain?

•                Does the Internet make people lonely, or are lonely people more attracted to the Internet?

•                Is social networking spreading the very isolation it seemed designed to conquer?

Anxiety about how social media is affecting our social skills is topic I’ve talked about on this blog: how Facebook affects our friendships, if we’re able to be authentic as friends through a virtual medium, and how to use Facebook as a tool to enhance existing, “real” friendships.

Ultimately, I care about the questions and ideas Marche presents because I see implications for individual and collective well-being. If there is a loneliness epidemic, and if that epidemic is contributing to suicide risk rather than resilience, Facebook’s role in creating that epidemic is worth serious consideration.

If you’d like to read the whole article (which I’d encourage!), you can find here. What do you think? Has Facebook increased loneliness or isolation? Are other factors at work? What implications do you see for mental health promotion or suicide prevention?

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

FACEBOOK ARRIVED IN THE MIDDLE of a dramatic increase in the quantity and intensity of human loneliness, a rise that initially made the site’s promise of greater connection seem deeply attractive. Americans are more solitary than ever before. In 1950, less than 10 percent of American households contained only one person. By 2010, nearly 27 percent of households had just one person. Solitary living does not guarantee a life of unhappiness, of course. In his recent book about the trend toward living alone, Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at NYU, writes: “Reams of published research show that it’s the quality, not the quantity of social interaction, that best predicts loneliness.” True. But before we begin the fantasies of happily eccentric singledom, of divorcées dropping by their knitting circles after work for glasses of Drew Barrymore pinot grigio, or recent college graduates with perfectly articulated, Steampunk-themed, 300-square-foot apartments organizing croquet matches with their book clubs, we should recognize that it is not just isolation that is rising sharply. It’s loneliness, too. And loneliness makes us miserable.