Facing Yourself via Facebook: An Opportunity to Expand Your Self-Growth & Personal Development

Facebook as a social media offers many functions to its users, from enabling them to connect with friends and family, to develop business liaisons, to dating and meeting others, and on to marketing one’s own expertise and products.

Another role that FB can be useful to the individual, which is “out of its box” as a networking website but yet very attainable and timely, is helping the individual EXPAND HIS SELF-GROWTH AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ((“He” throughout the article refers to both He and She).

Those individuals who see the opportunity offered by FB to attain this goal can use their time and interactions on FB for their self-growth and personal development: to get to know and understand themselves better.

IN WHICH WAYS CAN FB HELP ONE’S SELF-GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT?

Many users enjoy FB for giving them the opportunity to “surround” themselves with friends who give them love, attention, confirmation and affirmation by “liking” their statuses and responding positively to their content.

It is no secret that many have become “addicted” to such virtual interactions; they go to sleep already thinking about the responses they’ll find next-mo
ing to their latest statuses on FB, wondering how many they’ll receive, and how many new friendship-requests will be noted on their page.

This gives them not only the feeling of “belonging” to a larger group, but is also a driving-force to whichever competition they have with others on the number of friends they are accumulating.

This addictive behavior can be easily explained: FB does indeed offer individuals the feeling and the sense that they are connected; they belong; they can be seen for who they want to be seen and not necessarily for who they really are. Are there opportunities like these out there in “the real world”?

Taking all these points at face value, the question still is: WHICH NEEDS, FEARS, EXPECTATIONS AND ILLUSIONS Facebook responds to (unintentionally, since this is NOT its purpose!), which pull so many individuals to devote so much time and energy engaging with it?

This is where the individual’s inquiry to his own issues comes into place. He can use his interactions with and attitudes towards FB as a mechanism for self-growth and development by asking himself simple questions, such as:

* Does he feel that via FB he receives love and attention he usually doesn’t receive somewhere else?
* Does he feel that he needs as much love, attention, appreciation and confirmation as he can get and from as many people he can?
* Does all this attention and love fill him with a sense of value and pride that otherwise he doesn’t feel about himself?
* Is it easier for him to make “friends” on FB rather than in real life?
* Are there any NEEDS which drive him to spend time on Facebook (such as: need for love and attention; need to escape his loneliness; need for affirmation)?
* Are there any FEARS which enable him to make friends on Facebook easier than in real life (such as: fear of rejection; fear of intimacy; fear of commitment; fear of not being appreciated)?
* Does he allow himself to reveal on FB parts of himself which he doesn’t reveal otherwise?
* Is he true, honest and authentic – with himself and others on FB - presenting his ”real self”, or does he pretend to be someone he is not, and if so what drives him to doing so?
* Does he wish he was able to “transfer” some of his Facebook interactions to real-life-ones, but doesn’t know how?

Reflecting over these – and other questions – and giving himself true and honest answers enable the individual to get in touch with his own issues, fears and needs. By so doing he can expand his self-growth and development and become empowered to initiate the necessary steps to making a positive change in his life, friendships and relationships.