Facebook Use And Feeling Down In The Dumps… A New Study Claims To Have Found The ‘Missing Link’

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Facebook Use And Feeling Down In The Dumps… A New Study Claims To Have Found The ‘Missing Link’

December 4th, 2015

Awake Goy

Social media’s reputation has taken quite a battering recently, with
seemingly endless criticism of our obsession with cyber-reality hitting
the headlines this year (not to mention some pretty thought-provoking art work, photography, commercials and music videos on the subject). ~ Sophie Mc Adams
– Related articles

Scientists have warned us that Facebook messes with your brain and can cause depression and loneliness, while selfies have been linked to narcissism, addiction and mental illness.

One study even concluded that becoming obsessed with capturing the perfect image of yourself is more dangerous to your health than using cannabis (although if you read True Activist regularly, this probably won’t surprise you much).

Now, a new study by Sauder School of Business at the University of British Colombia has found that Facebook can contribute to a “decrease in mental well being,” and the key factor is envy.

Professor Izak Benbasat and his team just released a paper that claims to have found the “missing link” between social media use and adverse mental health issues.

Entitled ‘Why Following Friends Can Hurt You: Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Envy on Social Networking Sites’,
it warns that social media use can invoke jealousy, which contributes
to overall negativity and could lead to some of the more serious mental
health issues mentioned above. Benbasat explains:

“Social media participation has been linked to
depression, anxiety and narcissistic behaviour, but the reasons haven’t
been well-explained.

We found envy to be the missing link. It’s
important for people to know what impact it can have on their
well-being.

Parents and teachers should take note as young people can be
particularly vulnerable to the dark side of social media.”

Benbasat and his co-authors surveyed 1,193 Facebook users at a German
university. They asked students a series of questions about their
Facebook habits and cross-referenced them with the feelings they
reported when using the platform.

The team found that looking at how
amazing someone else’s life is can throw us into turmoil about our own
existence- what they refer to as a “vicious cycle of jealousy and self-importance.”

Benbasat claims holiday photographs are the most dangerous kind of Facebook
post, but it could be anything: your colleague has a new baby when
you’ve been trying for years, your friend is celebrating a promotion but
you’re stuck in a job you hate, some guy you hardly remember from high
school never stops posting about how in love he is, and you’ve just been
dumped.

The question is, wouldn’t we have these feelings of envy if social
media didn’t exist? Possibly yes, but maybe not on the same scale. Using
social media means connecting with a much larger number of people than
you ever would in your daily life.

While it’s unlikely that social
media will ever go away, Benbasat warns that we should be aware of what
scrolling down that newsfeed could do to our mood. Ultimately, though,
even he admits his team’s study probably won’t change a thing: