Triangling Facebook Into the Marital Unit
Often I find myself working with a kid in therapy whose parents have brought him/her in because of the problems they are creating in the family. In therapy/counseling terms that kid has become the identified patient. In short, the identified patient is:
The family member in whom the family’s symptom has emerged or is most obvious.
But often it doesn’t take long to realize that the problem really isn’t the kid, but rather the kid is just “acting out” because of what is going on in the family–the kid is carrying/becomes the carrier of the family problem. The scapegoat. This isn’t usually intentional, and is often done at an unconscious level in order to place blame on one member of the family in order to relieve anxiety in the other members–such as the marital unit. This is often why triangles are formed–in order to relieve the anxiety between two people.
BUT, I don’t think Facebook is really the problem. Rather, it’s just an easy scapegoat. Can it contribute to the problem? Yes. Can it be a catalyst in unhealthy marriage relationships? Certainly. But to blame Facebook would be to remove ourselves from the relational responsibility we have. And what about all the great things Facebook can accomplish–ways that it can enhance marriage relationships (I will talk about that later this week).
Non-Technological Neutrality, Marriage Relationships and Facebook
I’m definitely not a technological expert, but I have been learning a lot from John Dyer and others in this area. One of the things I have learned the most about is the non-neutral nature of technology which John speaks about quite a bit and in which I write about more recently in the post, Is Your Addiction to Technology Transforming Your Life. For example, I write:
At the ECHO conference John had a seminar titled Using Technology without Technology Using You. John’s main premise was that technology is not neutral. It can be both good and bad. But ultimately the use of technology is not neutral in that it transforms the user in some way. John gave the example of working with a shovel (a primitive technological tool). The shovel can be put to good use (church planting, building a home, etc.) and it can be put to bad use (killing someone, burying the body, etc.). But in either case it transforms the user in the form of blisters/calluses on the hand. The same is true of technology, whether you use it for good or bad, it still transforms you in some way when you use it.
So the question we all need to ask ourselves is, how is the technology and the tools we are using transforms us? And how does our use of technology transform those we relate to?
This is how I have come to understand the role of technology in my life.
Facebook is not the problem, but if we think that our use of Facebook isn’t transforming our marriage relationships in some way–then I think we are mistaken. Continue Reading…
