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Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#41

Post by threeseed »

karpathy wrote: post #13

82 participants. 3 participants did not complete. 1 person excluded as inconsistent > 4SD. Study comes down to: Participants were text-messaged 5 times per day between 10am and midnight over 14-days. """ Each text-message contained a link to an online survey, which asked participants to answer five questions using a slider scale: (1) How do you feel right now? (very positive [0] to very negative [100]; M = 37.47, SD…

I would go easy on the BBC here. The article's title was an accurate summation of the study and they obtained a qualified, third party person to comment on the study.

It's hardly going to win a press award but it is definitely newsworthy.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#42

Post by RougeFemme »

eksith wrote: post #11
squozzer wrote: post #4

Facebook in some ways is the ultimate HS or college party. Everyone has a front to present. So it's not surprising that it might make a lot of people feel bad because the reader is seeing everyone's outside and comparing it to their inside.

Very true. In HS or college, how much you'll enjoy it depends on your perspective and what you expect from the crowd as well. I never mingled with the shallow crowd (boy, that really sounds pompous; but it's true) because I knew I wouldn't get much out of that experience. But like HS and college, Facebook has its own variety of groups you mingle with and those you avoid with a 10 foot pole. That said, I avoid all of…

I think you hit the nail on the head. Just like in HS/college, what you see on FB is dependent, to a large degree, on who you choose to mingle with/friend. I AM on FB. But not constantly or even daily. And a lot of my "individual" friends share the good AND bad. Lost a job/got a new one. In the hospital/made a full recovery. And yeah, here are my vacation pics.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#43

Post by solistice »

eksith wrote: post #11
squozzer wrote: post #4

Facebook in some ways is the ultimate HS or college party. Everyone has a front to present. So it's not surprising that it might make a lot of people feel bad because the reader is seeing everyone's outside and comparing it to their inside.

Very true. In HS or college, how much you'll enjoy it depends on your perspective and what you expect from the crowd as well. I never mingled with the shallow crowd (boy, that really sounds pompous; but it's true) because I knew I wouldn't get much out of that experience. But like HS and college, Facebook has its own variety of groups you mingle with and those you avoid with a 10 foot pole. That said, I avoid all of…

You totally missed out on toying with the shallow crowd. Shallow people are just that, shallow, so they're rather easy to calculate. Since they usually annoy me to no end, I'll sooner or later resort to the people equivalent of cow tipping. I act perfectly well adjusted, and for a moment, a glint of madness, just enough that they question things. Best case scenario is that they question their facilities of judgement and become less shallow, worst case is that they don't like me anymore because I bewilder them, but then my goal wasn't for them to like me.

It's like playing with cats and a laser pointer.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#46

Post by bobsy »

> The more time they browsed the worse they felt.

Despite the shakey study wouldn't this result be expected? The more time you spend on Facebook the less time you spend actually socialising with real people? Facebook doesn't have voice chat. Text messaging is unforfilling.

Facebook has a great number of uses but one thing it doesn't do is allow you to see your friends, or actually speak to them. Using their chat box, if anything, emphasises the distance between you and the person you are speaking to.

Facebook doesn't have the tools to help with loneliness. Then it makes it worse by showing how awesome everyone else has it. My friends timeline is like a highlight reel of their best bits.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#47

Post by Zimahl »

enraged_camel wrote: post #26

I'm currently in-between girlfriends, and even though it is silly, I admit that I feel a pang of jealousy when my friends post pictures on Facebook showing how happy they are with their significant others. So even though this article talks about a shaky self-reported study with a low sample size, I think they are absolutely on to something. I can relate to the findings almost perfectly. Facebook is one big game of "k…

or that they got in a huge fight with their s/o right after posting pictures of hugs and kisses.

My wife's friend talks to her all the time about how her and her husband are constantly fighting and their marriage is falling apart. I hear this second hand but I'd never know that from all the lovey Facebook posts and pictures.

Another couple we are friends with is just 'perfect' and 'cute' on Facebook but the husband is just an ass to his wife sometimes (borderline verbal abuse) and has turned outings with them from fun to weird, awkward, and embarrassing. Meanwhile, the wife has become a secret stripper (husband knows and supports it) yet no one else knows.

I just assume that if someone is broadcasting that their husband or wife 'is the best ever' is covering for something.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#48

Post by dweinus »

karpathy wrote: post #13

82 participants. 3 participants did not complete. 1 person excluded as inconsistent > 4SD. Study comes down to: Participants were text-messaged 5 times per day between 10am and midnight over 14-days. """ Each text-message contained a link to an online survey, which asked participants to answer five questions using a slider scale: (1) How do you feel right now? (very positive [0] to very negative [100]; M = 37.47, SD…

...or do people use Facebook more when slipping into a more depressed state? Their method is crafted to find the reverse relationship, but I don't think that they properly defended against confusing the two.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#49

Post by cheald »

This doesn't particularly surprise me. Facebook is a self-advertising platform; people present a whitewashed and happier-than-reality version of themselves, and when you compare that to your own life (with its problems and warts and whatnot), you might conclude that your life is deficient.

It's the "keeping up with the Joneses" problem, except massively amplified.

Re: Facebook use 'makes people feel worse about themselves'

#50

Post by canadiancreed »

rfnslyr wrote: post #18
stephengillie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going on Facebook, I see how everyone's social life is better than mine. Going on Hacker News, I see how everyone's startup is doing better than my failed attempt. Going on Hackaday, I see how everyone's working on cooler projects than mine. The only place I feel good about myself is at work.

Everyone publishes the awesome shit they do. Nobody publishes constantly things they suck at, things they failed at, things they won't attain.

Personally I publish both the good and bad sides to things going on around me, mainly because I don't believe in whitewashing how things are, and also because I use it to keep in contact with family and friends that are of a distance away.

What I've found is that if there's a stretch where there's a lot of bad news, people will just tune you out, where comments dwindle and activity lessens even when that trend has reversed itself. In my incredibly small and unscientific sample size, it seemed that with negative news, there was a greater chance for people to "tune out", while people I knew that did the "everything is awesome" timelines would have higher then average interaction.

Thought it was interesting at least. I wonder if would be reproducible, or if it's just a weird quirk for the people that I know on there.

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