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The relationship between social media use and well-being

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Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#2
I am curious what's the point of being connected all the time? It's a question I've been asking myself since the U.S. election. So I can have access to a bunch of garbage people post on the Internet? So I can chat people quickly?

There's like a handful of truly useful things on the Internet. Most of the useless things though take up 90% of time on it.

I'm failing to see the value at this point.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#3
I was reluctant when I removed my fb account about six months ago but it felt like it was what I needed as it intruded on what I really wanted to focus my time and energy on.

A few weeks in I was amazed at how I did not miss the social network at all and surprised that the contacts that previously only contactef me on fb now wrote email and text messages.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#4
"Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being."

This is not a surprise. I quit Facebook specifically because of the endless stream of "my life is amazing" posts of people beig happy without any balance. Reminds me of those awful Christmas letters people send round about how wonderful their entire year had been and how amazing their children are.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#5
post #2

I am curious what's the point of being connected all the time? It's a question I've been asking myself since the U.S. election. So I can have access to a bunch of garbage people post on the Internet? So I can chat people quickly? There's like a handful of truly useful things on the Internet. Most of the useless things though take up 90% of time on it. I'm failing to see the value at this point.

to stave off the existential dread of course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#7
>These results then may be relevant for other forms of social media.

Does this mean they only studied Facebook, or did they look at other social media networks as well? It seems to me that it is the former, but I'm not sure. I imagine different networks would have different effects based on the way people use them.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#8
post #2

I am curious what's the point of being connected all the time? It's a question I've been asking myself since the U.S. election. So I can have access to a bunch of garbage people post on the Internet? So I can chat people quickly? There's like a handful of truly useful things on the Internet. Most of the useless things though take up 90% of time on it. I'm failing to see the value at this point.

As someone who doesn't participate in social media, I do see what the value was and still could be: a way for keeping up with people's lives you care a little or a lot about. My problem is, similar to yours, that the majority of content is external noise. I began to withdraw from social media when sharing external information became a norm, rather than internal information about someone's life.

edit: formatting

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#9
I came to the same conclusion a few years ago, when I delete my social accounts like Facebook. They only show you the best slices of individual lives, all day, every day. When compared to your life, it makes it look like you're doing nothing with your life. That it's completely boring, while all of these people are living these amazing adventures everyday. Combine that with all of the vitriol comments plaguing all of these sites, and it's easy to see why someone would think less of themselves. It's good to be social, but these networks are not the answer.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#10
post #7

>These results then may be relevant for other forms of social media. Does this mean they only studied Facebook, or did they look at other social media networks as well? It seems to me that it is the former, but I'm not sure. I imagine different networks would have different effects based on the way people use them.

Facebook only based on my reading.
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