Is Facebook making us sad?

[gromit]

Is this thread making us sad?

 

[Patches]

Broaden your circle of friends to include people who interact with more authenticity? I went down my Facebook news feed and these are the kinds of things shared by friends and commented on by friends:

I drank Dieter's Tea. Don't EVER EVER drink Dieter's Tea.
Go Steelers!
My pet died and I've finally decided to try an antidepressant.
For three days I'm doing an "honesty experiment" . . .
Here's a box I painted and it's for sale on eBay.
I have a migraine.
Check out this article (politics, philosophy, time travel . . .)
You won't believe what I overheard on the bus.
My son's friend has cancer with 8 months to live (prayer request).
Does anyone invest in organic food?
Quotes from Maya Angelou, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, etc.
Please take political action on this environmental issue, or this one, or this one.
I got two out of four items done on my to-do list.
Check out this artist, and this one, and this one.
I'm working on my novel!
Sharing this music youtube with you, enjoy.
Zumba!
Humor, humor links, and more humor, e.g., "[Name] is cle’a]ni.ng hi’s ke]yb29oa;rd"

I see Facebook as educational and caring.

This is the smartest friend you have.

 

[Red Herring]

- friends and aquaintances in art school posting about their highbrow compositions and poetry are a bit too artsy for me, but it takes all types. One usually posts beautiful photos, I always enjoy those.
- now overweight weird ex lover makes me wonder wtf I was attrackted to back then.
- former class mates now with cool jobs posting about their work related trips around the world make me feel like I should have done better professionally. Then again, I am a freelancer and my own boss and therefor way cooler than any cool employer could ever be, right? Righ?
- New couples in love with joined profile pics are cute as long as they don't overdo it.
- comments on how great/cute/funny some stupid mainstream stuff is turns me into an arrogant smug elistist
- cryptic posts by that pretentious philosophy doctorate who usually posts some deep sounding self made koan always make me wonder what he's smoking
- the almost daily Repost This If You Love The Lord posts by my former host mum from the US makes me cringe everytime. But I only send christmas greetings and best wishes when she posts about a family situation, otherwise we don't communicate.
- Seeing my ex flirt with his new flame who lives on the other side of the great pond gives me mixed feelings.
- Former room mate now successful freelance journalist blogs about his new life as a foreign student in Jerusalem and his views on politics. Sounds interesting, but believe me it isn't. Really. He's a great guy, but his writing is mediocre and self congratulatory.
- Humorous posts and funny or interesting youtube videos are always welcome
- I might never have found out some people got married or had children if it wasn't for FB, that's cool. Reminds you how fast time passes.
- Posts my pages I "liked" remind me of things I like in life. Hey right, I like that writer, series, place, thing, etc...nice to be reminded!

 

[Lark]

Aye.

All of modernity is.

 

[KDude]

http://www.slate.com/id/2282620/

I don't have facebook active anymore, but I'd have to agree that it plays into my sense of vanity a bit. Not that I'm envious, but in the sense of self-criticism. I don't want to even think about my appearance, but I somehow feel urged to on places like that.. and it's depressing. Not really my scene, I guess. I don't want to "peacock", yet I'm also well aware that I couldn't even if I tried. Same goes for career/status/what have you. I'm just sort of out of it, and not exactly picwhore material to boot. When you're made aware of it, it's depressing. I'd rather go back to my own world where none of it matters.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

- friends and aquaintances in art school posting about their highbrow compositions and poetry are a bit too artsy for me, but it takes all types. One usually posts beautiful photos, I always enjoy those.
- now overweight weird ex lover makes me wonder wtf I was attrackted to back then.
- former class mates now with cool jobs posting about their work related trips around the world make me feel like I should have done better professionally. Then again, I am a freelancer and my own boss and therefor way cooler than any cool employer could ever be, right? Righ?
- New couples in love with joined profile pics are cute as long as they don't overdo it.
- comments on how great/cute/funny some stupid mainstream stuff is turns me into an arrogant smug elistist
- cryptic posts by that pretentious philosophy doctorate who usually posts some deep sounding self made koan always make me wonder what he's smoking
- the almost daily Repost This If You Love The Lord posts by my former host mum from the US makes me cringe everytime. But I only send christmas greetings and best wishes when she posts about a family situation, otherwise we don't communicate.
- Seeing my ex flirt with his new flame who lives on the other side of the great pond gives me mixed feelings.
- Former room mate now successful freelance journalist blogs about his new life as a foreign student in Jerusalem and his views on politics. Sounds interesting, but believe me it isn't. Really. He's a great guy, but his writing is mediocre and self congratulatory.
- Humorous posts and funny or interesting youtube videos are always welcome
- I might never have found out some people got married or had children if it wasn't for FB, that's cool. Reminds you how fast time passes.
- Posts my pages I "liked" remind me of things I like in life. Hey right, I like that writer, series, place, thing, etc...nice to be reminded!

There are definitely both pro's and con's to sites like these, which is why I tend to be somewhat active on those sites.

I wanted to be clear, that it doesn't always make me sad, but I've definitely gone through periods where it has played into my depression some.

Some of my friends will definitely post about some of their down sides, as well as up sides. And I do enjoy random links and articles people post, as they do keep me entertained.

The downside to these sites is when I am feeling down in the dumps or lethargic, or ostracized, or feeling insecure.

I don't have facebook active anymore, but I'd have to agree that it plays into my sense of vanity a bit. Not that I'm envious, but in the sense of self-criticism. I don't want to even think about my appearance, but I somehow feel urged to on places like that.. and it's depressing. Not really my scene, I guess. I don't want to "peacock", yet I'm also well aware that I couldn't even if I tried. Same goes for career/status/what have you. I'm just sort of out of it, and not exactly picwhore material to boot. When you're made aware of it, it's depressing. I'd rather go back to my own world where none of it matters.

Exactly.

 

[Queen Kat]

Facebook doesn't make me sad, because whenever I look at other people's lives, I can't compare them to mine. It does bore me, because most people seem to live an identical life. There are these tiny little differences, but in the end most people are living the exact same life. In that case I need to entertain myself with talking about myself and my life, because at least that's a bit different. I don't know anyone else who's living my life or whatever is close to that. I'm not an obsessive-compulsive party animal, I'm not a high school teen, I'm not a family person, I'm not a housewife, I'm not a hardworking loyal employee, I don't have a carreer, I'm not a shopping addict, I don't play WoW, my life isn't full of pain and agony, I don't pretend that my life is full of pain and agony, I'm not famous yet, I'm npt a bum that spends all day watching TV, I'm not a drug addict... I'm just rare and it's boring to read about the same old lifes all over again.

 

[Stanton Moore]

F*ck Facebook.

 

[Glycerine]

Exactly, everyone's posting pictures when they're having fun, looking hot, doing interesting things, being in interesting places. Everyone's creating an ideal desirable self.

I love the people w/ 3000-4000+ tagged pictures of themselves.... it's great.

 

[Glycerine]

Here are some of my "friends":
"Fuck meth. Seriously."
"Sorry, but I refuse to lie in a bed drenched in lust. No."
"always remember to be happy...because you never know who is falling in love with your smile "
"any one want to put bets on if i can make it threw the whole year with out kissing or sex (and everything in between)? i got one month down so far:-D"
"I admire all you young parents out there! I'm just a college student and i'm broke and stressed! I couldn't imagine having a child on top of it!"
"After dropping my basic macbook probably a 100+ times in the last 2.5 years, it's still fairly function (even w/ a broken logic board).... kudos to Apple durability."

 

[Sunny Ghost]

"just bought Best Coast/Wavves tix! Gonna be a good night with good friends."
"At work and HUNGRY!!!!!!!"
"Just saw a ton of cop cars driving on a frozen pond...it was awesome!"
"...is constantly learning."
"It's nice to laugh off something that only recently concerned me deeply. One more step toward inner peace...?"
"☮ you say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one... maybe one day you'll join us, and the world will live as one. ☮"
"come to mellow triv! all the cool kids are doing it..."
"Dear Kenneth, stop trying to burn me down.
respectfully yours,
Your Apartment"
(Quoting someone else apparently):"Last week I cupped a fart and threw it in my grandmother's face"
"laptop screen has been dead for about 2 months... i replaced it, now there's something else wrong with it... greeeat lol =-/"
"In the Rockies now...yeahyeah!"
"Its much easier to become a father than to be one. "
"I don't sympathize cause you a simple bitch lol"


Ha. Some of these were pretty funny.

 

[CuriousFeeling]

The things that would make me sad is pertaining to romantic relationships (who's getting married, etc.), but I can only blame myself for lack of success in that area. But FB on the most part doesn't get me all sad and depressed when I see others having success in their lives. A part of me cares, but a part of me doesn't. I guess I'm in my own world lately, so it doesn't effect me as strongly as it would if I were interacting with my friends on a face-to-face basis (no pun intended).

 

[Sunny Ghost]

I can't recall... did the study give a age range for their focus?

 

[cascadeco]

Seems like if you're lamenting others' success because you're not having any of your own, it's your own pitiful existence that's making you sad. Facebook just helps you realize it, I suppose? Don't kill the messenger.

Indeed!

----

Anyway... I myself find facebook mostly silly, regarding how it is actually used by most; I am rarely on it except to play scrabble, upload photos now and then, and because I feel obliged, to comment on friends' status occasionally on the infrequent occasions I log into the site! The one positive aspect is that I have been able to reconnect with a few people from my past. It's also a good centralized area to broadcast mass-updates and to maintain contact with people you don't interact with very often but don't want to lose complete touch with.

But it's definitely not necessary to my life or to maintain contact with my friends.

 

[Nicodemus]

I have yet to register. I am not sure I want to.

 

[strawberries]

i'm not sad and i don't have a facebook a/c. i'm not convinced there is a causal link between the two though.

 

[Billy]

Eh, I assume everyone on FB embellishes their accomplishments a lot. So I dont see a reason to get jealous.

 

[Mole]

Face and Soul

It is called 'Facebook' and we don't like to loose face so we put on our best face.

'Face' we were told was oriental and how they loved to save face, but today we are moving East and adopting the oriental 'face'. We have even created Facebook so I can present my face to you.

And the big advantage of Facebook is that it is very hard to lose face. But how we hate it when we do and it can lead to flaming.

I'll show you my face if you show me yours, but I remain a close-wraped soul.

Ah, but how my soul longs for yours.

 

[chickpea]

it can be make me sad sometimes, especially due to my bad habit of facebook creeping ex-boyfriends. but i'm not jealous of most of my fb friends' lives , a lot of them make me feel better actually in a secondhand embarrassment kind of way. especially with all the teen moms, "models," people who like to broadcast all their relationship problems over their statuses and it's funny to see the lack of self awareness in people, how differently they describe themselves than they really are ("i hate drama!!!")

 

[guesswho]

Eh, I assume everyone on FB embellishes their accomplishments a lot. So I dont see a reason to get jealous.

I see more tits than accomplishments on FB. And that's ok with me.