Social media therapy

Via Balloon Juice, I found this interesting article in the New Yorker called "What Your Tweets Say about You," which reports on a study of just that, but also at the end has this observation about blogging and social media:

For decades, Pennebaker’s studies have shown that when people keep a journal they tend to fare better emotionally, recover more quickly from negative experiences, and achieve more academically and professionally. Other recent work suggests that social media provides the same benefits, despite the fact that, unlike a journal, it’s inherently public. A 2013 study found that bloggers received the same therapeutic boosts as people who keep regular diaries; what’s more, the highest benefits came from writing entries that were open to comment, which were actually more beneficial than private journal entries. Researchers want to use social media to learn about you. But by writing in a public space you may also be learning about -- and helping -- yourself.

This was news to me. I kept a journal for many years starting probably in junior high school. I no longer remember why I started it, but my memory is that early on it was a place to write about my "ideas". The last time I looked at those oldest journals, which was probably twenty or thirty years ago, I found them painfully and relentlessly intellectualized, with very little about what I was feeling or what was going on in my life. As I got older, however, and probably after I got some counseling in my 20s, I started writing more about what I was feeling and what was going on in my life. I probably did think of it as being therapeutic, but I also felt that it was a journal of frustration and anxiety and painful self-doubt. I believe I stopped keeping the journal sometime in my late 30s or early 40s, and in retrospect it seemed to be because I had grown more accepting of myself and my limitations. I no longer felt so frustrated with my life and with my self. I apparently didn't need the therapy anymore.

Or did I? It wasn't all that long after I stopped writing in notebooks before I started this LiveJournal in July 2005. (It's the tenth anniversary this year!) I recognized almost immediately that it satisfied pretty much the same itch as my old paper journal, except it wasn't private. That's part of what's so interesting about that quote from the article above. I remember showing my paper journal to my friend carl when we were freshmen in college -- perhaps the only time I showed anybody else my journal -- and how the sense of connection that resulted was almost overpowering. My LiveJournal has been pretty personal at times, but it has gotten less so since I put my real name on it and opened it to search engines. But there's still something powerful about putting your thoughts out in a public space, and that's true of Facebook too. It doesn't feel particularly therapeutic to me anymore, but perhaps it really is. Perhaps there's more therapeutic value in sharing a book review than I realized. I guess one thing I *have* noticed is that on the most primitive level posting things to the internet is a bit like pinging a server. It's a way of saying, "Are you out there? Can you see me? Are we connected?"