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There are lots of things social media shouldn’t do for us. Here is a quick focus on three.

1. Social media shouldn’t be used to resolve or address conflict.

It’s too impersonal. It’s no one else’s business anyway. Conflict is not something that should be brought into an arena where everyone can view it. It increases your respect for someone to say: “Let’s take this offline and deal with it in a way that increases our respect for each other and leaves everyone else out of it.”

2. Social media shouldn’t be our primary source for meeting emotional needs.

It’s fun to have people “like” our statuses, our photos, our thoughts, etc. But where is the line between having a bit of fun and being disappointed you didn’t get a certain number of likes?

Think about what’s going on inside if we post something expecting a certain number of likes, then find disappointment when that doesn’t happen. Hmmm…

How about we get our emotional needs met from trusted, growing, real relationships and conversations?

3. Social media shouldn’t be an intimate family journal and commentary.

I’ll admit this might be a personal preference, but I really wonder if we should think about our kids looking back at our pages in 10 years. Do we need to post every detail, every funny story? Do we need to post every photo of every outing? I love to share a funny photo or a good story as much as anyone, but is there a line where it becomes too much?

Maybe even more dangerous, do we need to post stuff that might embarrass our kids in the short run or the long run? Is there a level of thinking we should go through before posting about our kids?

I don’t have this one all figured out, but I struggle with it. At the very least we should take care in what we post and share about our families.

Think. What is social media doing for you? How do you use it? Are there areas of your usage that are unhealthy?

Act. The good news here is that making adjustments is as simple as changing the way you post.