Ravi Chandra, M.D. is a psychiatrist and author in San Francisco. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and in 2016 was awarded a Proclamation by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for his community and humanitarian work.
Facebuddha: Transcendence in the Age of Social Networks is his debut nonfiction work. He writes blogs for Psychology Today on psychiatry, spirituality and culture, and for the Center for Asian American Media, on film. He is a published poet, and author of a fox peeks out: poems, and a short book of essays on Asian American Anger.
While social media plays to the human needs for connection, self expression and identity formation, this can come at great costs in mental health, verified by much research. As human beings, we are shaped by relationship. When we choose to substitute this new form of online relating for face to face, we are imperiling our very identities.