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LiveScience
Facebook's initial public offering of stock is likely to make a lot of developers and designers of the site very wealthy. But for many users, frequent Facebooking may not be so beneficial.
According to three new studies, Facebook can be tough on mental health, offering an all-too-alluring medium for social comparison and ill-advised status updates. And while adding a friend on the social networking site can make people feel cheery and connected, having a lot of friends is associated with feeling worse about one's own life.
The thread running through these findings is not that Facebook itself is harmful, but that it provides a place for people to indulge in self-destructive behavior, such as trumpeting their own weaknesses or comparing their achievements with those of others.
Take status updates. Most people know that their Facebook friends tend to craft these online-wall memos on what they're up to in a way that puts their lives in the best light, said Mudra Mukesh, a doctoral candidate in marketing at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid. But when it comes down to actually using the site, reading other people's status updates still makes Facebookers feel worse. [Facebook's Global Reach (Infographic)]
In research presented earlier this month at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychologists (SPSP) in San Diego, Mukesh and her co-author Dilney Goncalves found that when people think about the last time someone asked to friend them on Facebook, they get a boost in feelings of belonging and social connectedness — the kind of feeling that makes people "sing 'Kumbaya,'" Mukesh told LiveScience.
But once you've collected all those friends, viewing their status updates is a downer, Mukesh said. When asked how they felt about their place in life and their achievements, people with lots of Facebook friends gave themselves lower marks if they'd just viewed their friends' status updates, compared with people who hadn't recently surfed the site.
For people with just a few friends, viewing status updates wasn't a problem.
"A small number of friends means a low probability of viewing others showing off," Mukesh said. For people with lots of friends, though, the Facebook Newsfeed turns into a parade of good news about other people's live: promotions, engagements, weddings and new babies. Even if someone knows intellectually that people use Facebook to show off, Mukesh said, all of this information can make them feel worse about their own achievements or lack thereof. [10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life]
(In Mukesh's study, 354 friends was the cut-off point for when participants started to feel bad about viewing status updates. But that's not a universal number, she cautioned, just the number that applied given the statistics of her sample.)
In another study presented at the SPSP conference, researchers at the University of Houston surveyed college students and found that time spent on Facebook is linked to depressive symptoms. That doesn't mean Facebook causes depression, but that depressed feelings and lots of Facebooking tend to go hand in hand, for whatever reason. For young men, the study found, the link seemed to be a tendency to compare oneself with others.
"It appears as if males, when they socially compare themselves on Facebook, they tend to experience depression systems," study researcher and University of Houston doctoral student Mai-Ly Nguyen told LiveScience.
In this case, Facebook seems to be a new medium for men to compete with one another, Nguyen said. Outside the digital realm, men often compare themselves with one another, she said. It may be that women more often use the site to connect with one another and men to compete with one another.
Some people, however, don't use their Facebook status updates to pump themselves up. Instead, they complain.
People with low self-esteem view Facebook as a safer place to express themselves than in face-to-face interactions, according to new research published in the March issue of the journal of Psychological Science. All this venting may actually alienate friends.
Researchers led by Amanda Forest of the University of Waterloo in Ontario collected recent status updates from 117 participants who also reported their average time spent on Facebook and answered questions to reveal their self-esteem levels. Some statuses were chipper, such as "[Poster] is lucky to have such terrific friends and is looking forward to a great day tomorrow!" Others wallowed in bad news: "[Poster] is upset b/c her phone got stolen :@."
Next, the researchers had another group of participants read the status updates and rate how much they liked the person who wrote each. Unsurprisingly, people responded more positively to posters whose updates were positive.
Of course, you'd expect friends to be a little more caring than strangers. So the researchers set up another experiment in which they collected recent status updates from 98 undergraduates and also asked the students to submit the number of likes and number of comments on each.
It turned out that for users with high self-esteem, a negative post garnered more responses than a positive one, presumably because those people's friends were concerned about the out-of-character update. For users with low self-esteem, though, negative posts seemed to exhaust friends: They got few responses.
"Indeed, [low-self-esteem users'] friends rewarded their posts with more validation and attention the more positive they were, perhaps trying to encourage this atypical behavior," Forest and her colleagues wrote.
The takeaway of all this work is not to dump your Facebook account — the site has its benefits, some psychological. But researchers suggest being mindful about your online social life, just as most people are about friends in the real world.
"You have to be careful," said University of Houston psychologist Linda Acitelli, who advised Nguyen on the social comparison study. "I think parents, especially if they have teenage kids, need to be monitoring how much time they spend on Facebook."
Because Facebook provides more opportunities to peer into others' lives, it helps to keep Facebook pitfalls in mind, according to the Instituto de Empresa's Mukesh. She found that reminding people in the moment of what they already know — that people brag on Facebook — can ease the self-recriminations that come with hearing about friends' accomplishments.
"At the end of the day, have more friends, there's no problem with that. Just be sure to remember that when you start feeling crappy about your life, think about the fact that you have a large number of friends and that increases your probability of viewing more ostentatious information," Mukesh said. "So, it's not you, it's them."
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I quit using facebook a few months ago and have never looked back. In fact, I have never met anyone who regrets ditching their facebook account.
You're welcome to join FreezeCrowd if you're a college student. It's a way to connect with friends through photos you take. We'd love to have more people join because I believe it's better for your health.
There is no way facebook is actually worth the new estimates. "they" say it is a wonderful data mining tool "they" say we will buy more products that are advertised on facebook. I have a strict budget and I never look at facebook ads.
I do like Facebook for several very wonderful reasons. I have first cousins all over the world and growing up we were very close but we each have taken jobs that require travel. FAcebook allows easy access to keep up to date on their families and careers. I also have "friended" several of my daughters classmates parents to find lots of substance abuse, affairs and gun toting maniacs.....needless to say, daughter will not be going over unsupervised for a playdate :)
I'm pushing a campaign to randomly add brand names to the end of my facebook posts. Contradictory ones, like "iPhone Android corn flakes" to spoof their association analysis. Whatever it takes to throw a little baseline noise into the system, and then they can devise systems to parse the noisiest facebook status updates; which means I will simply weave mutually contradictory items into my facebook status posts! Shakespeare would be proud of the effort.
I deleted my Facebook account two years ago. Most of my family does not use Facebook, so there is really no one for me to "keep up with" on there. Besides, I have better things to do with my time - like post Newsvine comments about Facebook on MSNBC.COM for people I don't even know.
Facebook imo is for the pathetic, weak and lonely people that cannot go face to face with a person in conversations or have lost the ability to socialize with real people.
I know a few people that actually think all these 300 and more on their accounts as if they are their true friends.
I don't trust FB, because on your friends list could be pedophiles, murderers (looking for their next victims) and god knows what else is lurking on your FB accounts.
People need to learn social skills and learn to talk and have conversations with real people "face to face" and not over the net.
As for the Vine, it's a place where people can post their opinions unlike FB that makes people think they have tons of friends that are nothing but a bunch of faceless people you will most likely never meet.
I think we need to start teaching the kids and teens to learn social skills and less FB chat/crap.
Go NewsVine!
:)
@Arieus: Yeah, because it's not like Facebook can be used to share photos with family members and friends across the country and around the world, right? I'm obviously lacking social skills because I use Facebook to keep in touch with family after moving across the country.
@Arieus: You are an Idiot and your post proves it since have no idea what you are talking about.
What i took away from this article.. its not Facebook that effects your mental health... its comparing yourself to others... i can't be the only one that does not use Facebook to compare myself to my friends list.... Facebook should be used to enhance your face to face social life not replace it...
Dan T-880865, you are suspended for a day for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
@Arieus I love Facebook and I am not weak and pathetic. I am a freelance artist and writer. Since I do not work outside of the home Facebook has been a saving grace for me to help avoid feeling isolated. I live in a subdivision where most of the adults have outside jobs. My one grown child lives 3000 miles away and I have family spread across the US. I have been able to connect with family on a regular basis that I rarely get to see and other family and friends that I hadn't been connected with in a very long time. The social problems stated in the article are not specific to Facebook. If someone has those tendencies they will have the same issues in any social situation. I love being able to read about the daily lives of my family and friends. Things I would not have known about otherwise. Like when my nephew's daughter first began to walk or a long distance friend getting a new job. You get to know people who do not live close by much more than you would otherwise. It feels like being a part of their life and you're a part of theirs. One of the things I really like is that no one person gets to be the center of attention, unlike a lot of other social encounters. Each has equal access to share and be heard. I have not had any of the issues stated in the article. I guess since I don't compete or compare myself to others. I like being able to cheer people on if things are going well and provide support if they are not. Sharing myself and enjoying having others share themselves with me. That sounds a like very heathly social activity.
"The takeaway of all this work is not to dump your account"
Oops.
I have to say I don't agree with this. I think a lot of people have forgotten that a friend is more then someone who you occasionally post something on his/her wall. Trash that Facebook account for a few months. See how many phone calls you get or invitations to do something. Try it and see if anyone says Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas...you have way less friends than you think.
I don't have way less friends than I think, because I know who my friends are. I have all the friends I need, and probably more than I deserve, and they don't need facebook to call me or wish me Happy Birthday.
I guess I should write more clearly when I post...
Facebook, the tool for tools.
Facebook is completely annoying and pretty much a waste of time.
Sorry, but Facebook put me back in touch with people I have not seen since High School. Facebook put me in touch with second cousins that I have never met and cousins that I have not seen since childhood. Facebook provides an easy way to share photo's with people I don't see on a daily basis. Facebook helps me keep in touch with distant family members that I see once a year. Facebook has helped me reconnect with the comunity that I grew up in. Facebook has Bejeweled Blitz! which helps me wind up and wake up every morning.
It is a wonderful and useful tool.
Facebook is what you make of it. I'm not insecure. I have a healthy relationship with my friends on FB....just like I do my friends I see everyday in 'living' color. I disagree with Stephanie in the fact that she has a narrow view of other ways that FB does 'good'. Anything in moderation exemplifies a richer, healthier life.
And you couldn't have contacted those people via mail, email or that great invention the telephone? Using these alternative methods doesn't subject you to adds and becoming a part of a marketing database.
@Realist: It's awfully hard to show someone a photo album over the telephone.
"Realist-1226632
And you couldn't have contacted those people via mail, email or that great invention the telephone? Using these alternative methods doesn't subject you to adds and becoming a part of a marketing database"
The privacy issues are still my biggest concern and why I've never joined Facebook. Probably never will.
And I resent it when certain articles on msnbc.com don't allow comments except through Facebook. If that's how they want to do it, then post the article on Facebook only.
I cancelled my account almost a year ago for several reasons... I was using it too much and comparing myself to others and was going through a difficult/depressed time in my life. But, I think I will re-open it (maybe) and keep it as a very low priority and rarely use it.
So, according to Mai-Ly Nguyen, MEN compete against each other while WOMEN just use Facebook to connect?!!?!?!??!??! REALLY???? Of all the blind ignorant statements in the world that has to rank up there in the very top tier. How that got quoted is beyond me. Are you that blind about faults that women have, to see that they are fiercely competitive? When it comes to gossiping on Facebook, Women certainly are as competitive as any man, and probably much more so.
Facebook used differently.
I use Facebook, and whenever my friends list gets to about 75 people. I start deleting people until I get back to about 30.
I do not need to hear about how your dog pissed on the floor again. delete.
I do not need to hear you ate a donut for breakfast. delete.
I do not need to read only crap shared from someone else? delete.
I do not need people to try to guilt me into re-posting things. delete.
Don't be trying to sell me anything. delete.
You continually post things to try and make yourself and life look better than it really is? delete.
You ate Rush Limbaugh? delete.
I have a cousin, who incidentally has been booted off my list, who had over 1500 "FRIENDS" on facebook.
He had an interview for a job, and his car broke down. He needed to get a haircut the day before the interview.
None of the 1500 people would give him a ride to get his hair cut.
None of those people were his friend, yet he refused to delete any of them off his list.
I have people add me because they think I am someone else from my high school that was 2 years younger than me. I laugh at them and give them a hard time a lot, they still have me on their list. It's as if they can't bring themselves to delete me. It doesn't matter how many times I reveal they are a dumbass, they hold on tight. If their number goes down, somehow they think they lose or something. It is a weird phenomenon at the very least.
I am the opposite.
If you add me then do not return my message, which basically says hi how have you been, you get booted faster than you added me.
I use Facebook very different from most users. My page is public, you can look at my page, and even make a comment on my posts, but be warned, I do not coddle stupidity. :)
Low moral standards get you booted. High moral standards are welcome.
I agree with part of the article.
Too many friends can be depressing. If I had 1500 friends on my list, and couldn't get anyone to give me a ride, I would be depressed too!
Excellent point regarding Facebook's "friends". How many are geniune friends, I'm not sure. I've only had to depend on facebook friends once: and they were my friend long before I put together my FB account and added them to it.
In the end, it boils down to using facebook as a index of people you've run across, or a true listing of people who count themselves as your friends. However, people might be offended if they find themselves in your casual acquaintaince category instead of your friend category.
No social network accounts for this smart girl!
I'd be in the same boat, but I used LinkedIn :(
I like Facebook very much and there's no need for me to compare myself to others on the site. It's a great way to keep in touch with family and close friends, I don't understand why so many people are knocking it. The "friends" are nice to have also... I've met some really nice folks from other countries that I wouldn't have met otherwise.
GO FACEBOOK!
Social networking is a great tool, but it's not for people who are very cynical, untrusting, jealous of others, and unwilling to share a little of themselves in simple conversation with people from different cultures and backrounds. You don't have to be friends with everyone on your friends list and you don't have to give up all of your privacy either, but it is fun to be a part of a group of people who just want to connect with the world. The more "friends" the merrier !!!!
I love it. I recently joined, and have reconnected with many good friends from my past. It is like all things in life, moderation is a good thing. Too much water or air can kill you.
How much money was wasted on this "study"??? Anyone with a keen sense of the obvious could have thrown this information together. Facebook is a place to connect, vent and share. Much like all other aspects of life, Facebook is fine. In moderation. Used responsibly, it can be a great resource. Used irresponsibly, it can be dangerous. The same can be said for a book of matches. A car. A frying pan. A hammer.
Everything about this article is wasteful.
I started using Facebook again after I heard businesses are using facebook more ....But I checked out an old high school friend and I didn't even recognize him..........then friend suggestions started popping up from old places I lived........It was depressing to see old neighbors and friends change so much..................It was a shock......I prefer to hold on to my memories thank you very much!
6 people I know, their facebook info is fake. They are using fake names and then doing some kind of photo tricks with thier profile pics. Their close friends know who they are, but nobody else could recognize them from the fuzzy, blurred, rainbow colored or otherwise image enhanced photos of themselves.
They all know about some ad blocking software that they installed on their computers so that when they are on facebook, none of them ever even sees any ads of any kind. (might be nice for them to share that info with others because I don't know anybody who likes the facebook ads)
And I personally know 4 more people who have each created more than 20 facebook profiles out of thin air, simply to have more "neighbors" to play against in those stupid games. It seems the more neighbors you have, the better bonus, perks, gifts and scores you get. So they each made up 20+ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, work place names, comments, statuses and photos. Some of the profile pix were copied and pasted from online ads. Some were silly, like for a bogus person with the last name Crow, the profile pic is of a group of crows flying around over a cornfield.
There is absolutely nothing in any of these facebook accounts that could be used to contact a person, find out a person's buying habits, or advertise to a person.
So this is just 10 people I know, and that makes more than 86 fake facebook profiles. How many other people do you think are doing this too?
Bottom line -- facebook does NOT have 500 million or billion or whatever users whose data can be mined for profit. It's all an illusion, yet it seems that until this is found out by verifying that each individual profile is actually a real person, facebook WILL be making money by claiming they have something valuable to offer those who choose to buy in. It is those who buy in who will end up losing big time.
Which is worse: reading your friend bought a new BWM on facebook or hearing your mother saying your friend got a new very nice car at breakfast?
sheesh! Why all the negativities lately? What about mental health issues on negative vibes and bad karma?
6 people I know, their facebook info is fake. They are using fake names and then doing some kind of photo tricks with thier profile pics. Their close friends know who they are, but nobody else could recognize them from the fuzzy, blurred, rainbow colored or otherwise image enhanced photos of themselves.
They all know about some ad blocking software that they installed on their computers so that when they are on facebook, none of them ever even sees any ads of any kind. (might be nice for them to share that info with others because I don't know anybody who likes the facebook ads)
And I personally know 4 more people who have each created more than 20 facebook profiles out of thin air, simply to have more "neighbors" to play against in those stupid games. It seems the more neighbors you have, the better bonus, perks, gifts and scores you get. So they each made up 20+ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, work place names, comments, statuses and photos. Some of the profile pix were copied and pasted from online ads. Some were silly, like for a bogus person with the last name Crow, the profile pic is of a group of crows flying around over a cornfield.
There is absolutely nothing in any of these facebook accounts that could be used to contact a person, find out a person's buying habits, or advertise to a person.
So this is just 10 people I know, and that makes more than 86 fake facebook profiles. How many other people do you think are doing this too?
Bottom line -- facebook does NOT have 500 million or billion or whatever users whose data can be mined for profit. It's all an illusion, yet it seems that until this is found out by verifying that each individual profile is actually a real person, facebook WILL be making money by claiming they have something valuable to offer those who choose to buy in. It is those who buy in who will end up losing big time.
Facebook is meaningless. It goes nowhere, does nothing and mesmerizes you into spending valuable time that could be spent doing things of a redeeming value. It is run by a self-promoting billionaire nerd.
I hate it yet wish I'd thought of it. :)
Is there a program that calculates how much time you spend on FB?
I used a program to block my access to Facebook because it was just too tempting for me. I noticed a while back that Facebook left me feeling sort of down...especially since I've been out of work. I spent more time on the site because at first it helped me to feel socially connect. But after a while the pitfalls and drawbacks became very apparent.
I started to wonder when certain people I followed and frequently left comments for didn't really reciprocate.
I had a couple of "disagreements" of sorts on topics and I didn't like the feeling of disagreeing in a public forum where everyone was quietly "listening in" and forming an opinion.
Then there are the privacy settings which are confusing and always changing so that once or twice I posted status updates that weren't meant to be seen by all users (which included my mother and sister in law - who are nice people but let's face it, they are my in-laws.) My husband reported back to me that they had gotten info I would have liked them not to know about me from one of my Facebook posts.
I had a stalker for a while who thankfully tried unsuccessfully to trick me into accepting their friendship request so they could presumably blast my wall with nasty messages. I have seen this happen to other people. Young women are notorious with this sort of behavior. I'm too old for that craziness but there is always a chance something like this might happen even to the nicest person who happens to make an enemy who has a friend or interest in common.
And you get so comfortable you want to express your opinion about everything, but forget that some of the people you have friended are colleagues or potential colleagues as well so what they see or read about you on FB can also jeopardize your career. They may think, "this person is OK as a Facebook friend but I would never recommend them based on...."
Facebook archives comments and messages so there is a chance something you've said or a photo you've posted could pop up later to hurt you, even if you deleted it, and there is nothing to stop someone from copying and pasting a screen cap of your comments and posting them for the whole world to see.
The thing that finally got me seriously thinking about abandoning my account was when I saw a commercial that basically asked you to imagine that all of the people you have friended are all in one room. You announce loudly that you've broken up with your boyfriend and someone who you barely know, a man, replies, "So, tell me about it, girlfriend." Would you share something so personal with someone who is basically a complete stranger if they were standing right in front of you? No.
This is the program I used to block my access to Facebook: http://getcoldturkey.com/ It malfunctioned and I haven't been able to access Facebook in about month. There was a fix available but I chose not to fix it because I realized that almost every website I go to, uses Facebook to mine and post your information to your profile (including this one). Sometimes I have posted things I didn't mean to post. But more importantly, Facebook has completely infiltrated the internet and you almost can't get away from it which is concerning.
I will not close my account just yet, but I sincerely believe Facebook has more negatives than benefits.
So just remember, don't post anything on Facebook that you would not feel comfortable shouting to a large crowd of strangers.
Too much of anything isn't good, even if it's something good! To me Facebook is like my neighborhood. When I step out of my house I go may go in different directions in my neighborhood and in the process I may or may not see something interesting, I may or may not meet neighbors, I may or may not stay for a conversation with someone, or see something I like or don't like...anything goes....but....I'm only passing through it going somewhere (else). When I step into the internet, to read the news or sports, to make a purchase, listen to music, send a message, whatever I take a gander through Facebook and see what's going on, so all of the above apply and, again, I'm only passing through it. Many get so involved in games, and/or attractions, invitations or whatever and that's where the harm is done.
If you limit Facebook to mostly real friends, relations, and aquaintences, with maybe a few select "new friends;" if you use it to keep up with their lives, good and bad; it can be a wonderful tool. If you collect hundreds of "friends" you have never met and you and they use it to boost egos and brag, it can beome a real downer. Like many other things, it is all in how you use it.
Facebook, like everything else, can be a powerful tool. It all depends on how you use it and what it means to you. I have a facebook account so I can keep up to date with friends and family, but I don't "friend" people for the hell of it. One fabulous thing that happened through facebook was the discovery of a group of people from my great-grandparents' home town in Italy. I found relatives and traced my ancestry back to 1649, in detail. I have names, professions and actual addresses for ancestors through 12 generations!
Brave Dad
He did the right thing! Facebook is nothing but a problem making site! also it mind your business and others, also it s an opportunity for other bad people to use to get your info and learn about you and even target you
I am against Facebook 100% this kid who created Facebook is a devil in a form of human