What Has Become Of Facebook?

Tracy Lamperti

I was thinking of leaving fb, but then I thought about all of the fiery rhetoric and burning invectives I would miss!

What about you? Do you have FOMO (fear of missing out)? Are you addicted to a good fight? Are you just here for the show?

Why Are You Here?

Do you get your news from FB? I admit, sometimes I think, “I wonder what’s going on in the world today?” So I go to fb assuming that anything major will have been posted by one of my “friends.”


Are you on FB to promote your business?


Are you on FB to connect with loved ones, especially the ones who don’t live nearby?


How much time is FB taking up in your life? What else could you be doing? What did we do before FB?



I know, lots of you are saying, “No, this doesn’t describe me. I’m just here to stay connected to loved ones.” But even so, just because you’re just here to stay connected with loved ones doesn’t mean you aren’t impacted by news, ads and opinions.

Are They Proud?

Are Mark Zuckerberg and the shareholders sitting at the conference table discussing how their platform has become vicious tool of hate, lies and division? Or is their profit so outrageously large that they are too happy sitting back on their easy chairs and yachts to let any sense or care about the destruction impact them?

Our Emotional Centers Were Lit UP, But Not Like Today

Do you remember when FB and YOUTUBE focused on people connecting with people, way back in the beginning? Businesses weren’t running the advertising campaigns through fb, they were in print and on the radio. Politicians weren’t running their campaigns on FB. There were no “influencers.” It was a safe, family friendly place to be. The images and messages sparked the emotional center of our brain, but there were no embedded messages or calls to action based on someone’s agenda, and there was no internal pressure to do battle with your fb “friends” or even with strangers.

What Would Happen If….?

What if we did a mass exodus from FB (IG doesn’t seem as bad) and found some other way to share pics of our babies, pets, gardens, etc.? Would there be a marked improvement in the way people of Earth treat each other?

Lighting Up The Brain

FB is a constant stream of images and short messages. Short messages are very similar to images. Think “sight words;” AND, THE, LOVE, DOG, HATE… We process sight words and constant exposure to slogans like, “BLACK LIVES MATTER” or “JUST DO IT” or “I LOVE YOU” as images. In other words, you don’t need to read it, you just look at it and know what it says.


Our brain can process thousands of images and simple messages in a short amount of time. Images and simple messages don’t light up the “thinking” part of our brain, as much as they light up the “emotional” part of our brain.



Emotion and thought are not always congruent. They don’t always line up. But we aren’t going to slow everything down so we can actually think about each image or message, we are going to just keep scrolling, because after all, aren’t most of us scrolling, whether it’s social media or a product category on Amazon, or news headlines as our “down time?” We feel tired, lazy, need a break, so we sit down, tune out our “real” environment, and get lost in world of scrolling.

Off To The Races With Our Emotions

Next thing you know, we’re off to the races with our emotions because we have seen an image that has lit up the emotional centers in our brain. Not all images are created equal. The media is really good at finding the high impact images, because they know people will be sparked by them, moved to emotion and moved to act, either by liking, commenting, fighting or whatever. They are the experts when it comes to “click bait.”

Have We Fallen Right Into Their Hand?

You know you. You know if you are hooked. Pay attention to how triggered you become by images and short messages and slogans. You have choices. Talk to your loved ones. Ask if it makes sense to use a different platform. I realize, you have different groups of “friends” and it’s not as simple as setting up a few private chat groups on text or a less volatile platform. All I hope for is that we can all pause, just briefly and ask ourselves, “Does someone, something, or some platform have my emotions chained up?” If so, what should I do about it.

The Dopifying of Men and Boys These Days

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
Do you get it that every time we seem to turn on the tv, news or in the movies these days the boys and men are getting terrible representation? Whether they are kowtowing to a bossy woman, making obscene gestures or noises, getting drunk or on drugs, committing some stupid crime, espousing the effeminate or acting like a pompus a__, or the countless other ways that they are being portrayed. What was wrong with Davy Crockett, or Huck Finn, Andy Griffith, Superman? Why have Sponge Bob and Homer Simpson and the many other “men” of today been selling by being so stupid? I am not up on any of today’s shows, but I get the point from the stories I hear, that it is not good. Even when an olympic star comes into the spotlight, all too often the story is tainted by some remark or behavior he made, not realizing everyone was watching. Where are the boys supposed to get their education? And what about the girls? Where are they supposed to learn who would make a good husband and father?  What brought this on was my prepping for morning meeting tomorrow at the Lamperti Homeschool. I was looking for something good in The Children’s Book of Virtues , Edited by William J. Bennett, Illustrated by Michael Hague. I just happened to open to page 38, Boy Wanted , by Frank Crane. I won’t put the whole story here, but here is a sample.

Before You Seek Therapy For Your Child

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
Photo by Michelle Kaye

Talking Beans

By Tracy Lamperti • March 30, 2025
What are those? Are those beans? What are they for? Can I touch them? One can learn a lot about a child by watching them play. Play gives us a glimpse into the thought process, emotions, relationships and the way they organise and put things together. With beans, even a teenager or adult can “sort things out” with beans, sand and other materials. Beans make a good medium for tea parties, hide and seek, play ground play, imaginative water, etc. In fact, beans can bring comfort to all ages. Children who don’t feel like they have a voice or have trouble sharing their thoughts and feelings often find themselves running their hands through the field of beans. The same goes for teenagers. Little ones, of course want to play with the beans, which provides a great opportunity to evaluate self-control, adherance to limits and their depth of imagination or level of organization. Beans are awesome! The video shown here represents a variety of bean benefits! An older adolescent, actually, a young adult, worked out many complicated issues in her sessions week after week while sorting beans. This person successfully sorted out ALL of the kidney beans, sorting on many levels! It is so curious to children to come to their therapy session and notice that something has happened involving the beans. It gives children and teens a real sense of commonality with others as well as insight. They come to learn that some people think like they do and some think differently, and it’s all ok. They learn that, while I may share something about the “beans,” I won’t “spill the beans.” They can trust that I will keep their confidence, just like I keep the confidence of the last “bean worker.” As you see in the video, a young person is re-mixing the kidney beans. This young person, being someone who really struggles with self-control and had been held back for weeks from mixing the beans that had been sorted out. We shared such a delightful moment when she was finally permitted to “mix!” Timing is so important, but relationship is more! So the cycle will continue when many young people come in this week and discover the new state of the beans!  Tracy Lamperti, Psychotherapist, Educator, Consultant
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