Over the course of the last 10 years, Social Media has become a widespread phenomenon.  In the Beginning, most of us thought this was a fabulous idea. Connecting with old friends from high school, hearing directly from a celebrity in real time, sharing photos of our lives for the whole world to see. In theory, this was harmless at first glance.

In an interesting book called Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson talks about the historical rise and fall of many innovations. In 10-year blocks, we have witnessed the rapid climb up the mountain of these innovations, but then we also see their rapid decline. Some great ideas become part of mainstream society, similar to a light bulb.

However, many “great ideas” fall away and innovation takes a new level of discourse as we see old reinvented. Social media has come through the last decade of rapid rise, morphing into the phase we are now witnessing, the fall, or reinvention.

These questions received from a fellow mother struck me as evidence of the beginning of this fall:

• "How can we become addicted to something when we are not physically taking in a substance?"
• "Is Social Media addiction actually a real thing?"

First off, thank you! Awareness begins when we start to ask great questions! The answers are complicated, to say the least, as we are still in a relatively new field of study. However, I would argue there are several trends that point to the place where we are all beginning to awaken.

In my previous post, I talked about recognizing that we do have a problem. Once we can admit that, we can begin the steps of understanding our addiction.

First off: Can we admit that perhaps all of this “connectivity” is not all it’s cracked up to be? While we do see and enjoy the obvious business and personal features that connectivity brings us, how many of us see the pitfalls that also come along for the ride? What will it take for us to become aware of the problem(s) and what will we do about them once we do see the problem for what it is?

After awareness of the problem occurs, and acceptance that ALL of us carry the capacity for “addiction”, we can begin the path to healing. Social Media addiction is not all that different than a drug or chemical dependence. The root cause of why we become addicted begins with one commonality amongst all human beings: We all carry a certain amount of wounded-ness; an inner voice that believes: Who we are, is not enough.  Dr. Gabor Mate, a leading researcher on addiction, stated that most addictions are rarely biological conditions. 

If we accept that all of us have the capacity to become an addict we begin the path to unity on our healing journey. As a side note, those folks you may see wandering downtown, perhaps causing you turn your nose up, please know that they are absolutely no different than you or I. Their addiction is just more visible than ours.

Early in our lives, we experience some level of trauma: parents divorce, death, family breakdowns, isolation, mental illness, and many other traumas. All of us carry a damaged root. Addiction in all forms carries the desire to numb and stuff the feelings of unworthiness we feel. The hardest concept to accept is that we are loved, just as we are. Full Stop.

I know that this is heavy to examine within ourselves. Most of the time we would prefer to numb our feelings whether we are aware of it or not. It is more attractive to deny, avoid, work longer hours, date more people, buy more stuff, eat more stuff and experiment with substances. I’m with you on that one. I was so convinced that if I could just make money as an adult I would cease being this poor, trash girl. Until I accepted my past for what it was and saw the gifts in my brokenness, I stayed unconscious.  

As a child of a divorced family with an alcoholic father, most of my adolescent and adult life I tried everything to make this not true. I wanted to be anything but myself. I avoided and ignored my wounds. Until I was prepared to face them, they continued to rear their ugly, activated head until I healed my broken heart. Does this sound familiar?

For many, social media and technology are the most attractive and socially acceptable forms of numbing and stuffing our feelings. We can create images of who we want people to believe we are. We can seek a constant external validation wheel for who we are that either:

a) loves us (whew) or

b) hates us (I always knew I was worth nothing).  

We seek to confirm our identity by handing over our power to others.  When we are not responsible for our own lives, we numb our daily lives. As parents, this is disastrous for our kids. All we do in this scenario is pass on our pattern, our wounded cycle to the next generation.

As parents of a hyper-connected generation, we should begin to recognize our wounded patterns and how social media is having us live in a constant state of unconsciousness. I am either living in the past or wishing for a future. As Eckhart Tolle would say: The very definition of insanity. Why? Because time is an illusion. You cannot change a past you lived and you cannot create a future if you are not present for the moment that is currently transpiring.

Addiction in all forms is hoping an external substance will change my internal feelings. If I am high, I do not feel my feelings. If I am constantly busy and connected, I do not feel my feelings. If I seek validation outside myself, I do not have to face my feelings. The incredible women at Karis Support Society will tell you the only way to truly heal is to marinate in love. Through the power of love and acceptance of self, one can heal the deep wounds of our past. Through the power of love and acceptance, we can be present in the life we are living today. We do not need to escape into our illusions because the reality of our life is so rich and beautiful.

Social media as an entity was built on your fears. These spaces were engineered to hyper condition you to external validation, to place you in a constant comparative psychosis. They are built to make you feel that who you are is not enough. Like all “drugs”, eventually you need more to numb the feelings inside until we hit rock bottom. This is beyond dopamine, this is beyond Pavlov’s social conditioning experiment. Social media was built to rob you of your time, thus stealing your life.

As parents, we are all just wounded children inside our beings; we need to awaken from the slumber of our own wounds. We have these beautiful souls right in front of us that need us, love us and accept us. There is not a celebrity alive, nor an old high school boyfriend that will ever be able to replace the love of a child.

The wise advisor at Karis Support Society, Anita, tells all the women in recovery, through love and acceptance we can heal. The renowned Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld both talk about feeling our feelings and keeping our kids close. Children today are in the vortex of social media but through our family love, and through marinating our children in love, we can change this current system. We can, through the power of love, re-engineer technology to fuel our love. Instead of dopamine, our brains can release Oxytocin, the ultimate love drug. As this column continues to grow and evolve we will discuss more of all these factors from the habitual to the chemical.

If you are seeking advice in the world of tech and how it affects you and your family, we encourage you to send an email to Askada@mazufamily.com and we will do our best to provide practical, insightful advice.

Janice Taylor is a social entrepreneur, mother, speaker, author and online safety advocate. Her credo of compassion, community, and caring drives the vision of her company Mazu, a safe and fun online platform for families. Mazu gives parents a place to communicate, play and connect with their children in a safe engagement environment.