Is Facebook envy making you miserable?
2013-01-22 20:27
London - Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and
work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and
loneliness, according to German researchers.
A study conducted jointly by two German universities
found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has
over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social
comparison.
The researchers found that one in three people felt worse
after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people
who browsed without contributing were affected the most.
"We were surprised by how many people have a
negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely,
frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of
Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt University told Reuters.
"From our observations some of these people will
then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site," said
Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation
point in some markets.
Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt's
Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment
with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.
Social interaction was the second most common cause of
envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those
of their Facebook friends and how many "likes" or comments were made
on photos and postings.
"Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with
users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations
and socialise," the researchers said in the report "Envy on Facebook:
A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" released on Tuesday.
"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on
Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."
Envy
They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely
to envy family happiness, while women were more likely to envy physical
attractiveness.
These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to
boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook to portray
themselves in a better light.
Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on
Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments, while women stressed
their good looks and social lives.
The researchers based their findings on two studies
involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference on
information systems in Germany in February.
The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of
envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to
passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.
The researchers said the respondents in both studies were
German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a
universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.
"From a provider's perspective, our findings signal
that users frequently perceive Facebook as a stressful environment, which may,
in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability," the researchers
concluded.
