Facebook – Place Where We ‘Add’ Friends and Get Depressed When We See Them Happy

How many times have you logged into your Facebook account, spent sometime checking updates of your friends and somehow felt uncomfortable?

A slight feeling of being lonely, at a loss, a feeling of being deprived and negativity have often been associated with Facebook. How can a social network, which is meant to help us be socially active, build a happy social circle, something which is supposed to make us happy and keep us socially engaged be a cause of our sadness and anxiety?

Facebook has been closely linked with feelings of low self esteem. Youngsters often scroll through updates and posts of their friends in their news feeds and develop a strange and weird negativity. An instant comparison starts developing in the minds which slowly starts having a negative influence on the mind and health of the individual.

You must have had the same feeling sometime or the other, when an update from your friend made you realize you are not as happy or successful as your friend.

In spite of being the most popular social networking website in the world, the truth is that Facebook is said to be one of the main reasons for sadness, anxiety and depression in a section of people. As per a recent research, it was found that 76% people have reported signs of unexplained uneasiness after checking their Facebook account.

Who is responsible for such a situation? Why do we react in such a way? The answer is still baffling many of us. It is a strange psychology where we desire to be socially active but at the same time we develop feelings of deprivation and unhappiness.

Facebook is supposed to improve our lives with cultural and social exchanges but spending a lot of time on the website can actually make us sad. It is known to be associated with low levels of life satisfaction, trigger in feelings of jealousy and often leads to low self esteem. As per a recent study, it has been revealed that only 9% of Facebook users are actually involved in activities which involve communication.

There were days when I logged into Facebook in a happy and blissful mood – spent around 30 minutes in the website, checking updates, photographs and posts. I soon realized my life isn’t as successful as my friends. I haven’t been on a vacation for a month, I did not have a candle lit dinner for long, my wardrobe is boring, I do not work in a MNC as my friends – my life is simply not as happy as my friends. Everyone is richer, happier and successful than I am. I felt terribly sad and depressed.

'LIKES' are an integral part of Facebook. Haven't you felt a bit distressed when you uploaded a photograph and very few of your friends 'liked' it? How does it feel when you have changed your profile picture and no one 'likes' it within the first ten minutes. Anxiety, mood swings and apprehensions are all a part of the life of Facebook users and unfortunately we can do nothing about it.

Does this sound familiar?

Just think for yourself – did all this come to your mind before you browsed through updates? Well – obviously NO! Updates and posts from your friends did take a toll on your mental health. This is a unique feature of Facebook, which is affecting millions of people around the globe.

We all have the feeling of envy, embedded deep within us. Facebook helps in aggravating the feeling. We no longer make friends – we ‘add’ friends in Facebook and we ‘envy’ them too. People post lovely family photographs, share photographs of stunning vacations and post happy status updates with the belief that their ‘friends’ will definitely share their happiness. The truth is friends do ‘LIKE’ the status and comment on the photographs, but a few of them will definitely have a heavy heart. An unheard sigh about not being equally lucky or a feeling of losing out to happy events in life makes us feel low and depressed. We have started envying our friends but do not wish to let them know – isn’t that hypocrisy?

Why Do We Still Use Facebook?

In spite of such an emotional toll, it is known that 70% Facebook users spend at least an hour of their daily life in this social network? Why do users like to come back, if the website makes them sad?

Do you have the answer?

Well...this is what makes Facebook one of the most popular social networks in the World.