WCBS 880 Interview: Are You Addicted To Social Media?

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - If you're really into social media, you might want to ask yourself some questions.

Do you type "LOL" more times than actually laughing out loud?

Do you chat with your Facebook friends more than your real-life ones?

Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions, it might be time for a change.

WCBS 880's Pat Farnack spoke with personal growth expert Brian Vaszily about his new book, "The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever."

LISTEN: Farnack With Vaszily

"Just how widespread is this social media, I was going to say addiction, but it is sort of like an addiction, isn't it?" asked Farnack.

"Yeah, you know it really is. I mean, you know, the saying goes 'everything in moderation' and it's not a bad thing. It certainly has a lot of benefits in some ways, but here's what happening, long story short, is that people are spreading themselves so thin and we are valuing that 4,000 facebook friends and what we are sacrificing is depth in our lives," Vaszily told Farnack. "There's an, identified, by neuroscientists, loneliness epidemic going on in the world where people feel, even if they're in marriages, for instance, they feel like nobody knows the real them. They don't have anybody or very few people that they can really, really connect to and that's, again, got a lot to do with how we're valuing all these different points of contact, but we are losing the depth of relationships."

"Now, if somebody says to you 'Would you please put that thing down?' or 'Would you get off the computer and get off Facebook?' does that suggest maybe you should do something about it, maybe you are too disengaged from life?" asked Farnack.

"Oh, absolutely. You know, I mean, take a look around, I mean wherever people might be listening right now today, take a look around. Chances are good that if there are people around you, and maybe you yourself right now, your face is buried in some kind of screen. Your nose is facing a TV screen or a cell phone screen or the computer screen, or Facebook or some social media maybe going on, and you know, we're not really even visually, like, engaging with one another like we once used to, and it's going to have all kinds of serious effects on people. They're going to feel lonely, depresssed, more stressed out than they need to, and I know a lot of people today identify with feeling stressed out. That's what the whole '9 Intense Experiences' book is about, by the way, is how to get off that 'hampster wheel life' as I call it, which is this thing of going faster and faster and feeling like you're getting nowhere," answered Vaszily.

To learn more about the book, click HERE.