Article: Facebook Is Making Us Miserable

[lefty]

When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some seven years and 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future. But this new world of ubiquitous connections has a dark side. In my last post, I noted that Facebook and social media are major contributors to career anxiety. After seeing some of the comments and reactions to the post, it's clear that Facebook in particular takes it a step further: It's actually making us miserable.
Facebook's explosive rate of growth and recent product releases, such as the prominent Newsticker, Top Stories on the newsfeed, and larger photos have all been focused on one goal: encouraging more sharing. As it turns out, it's precisely this hyper-sharing that is threatening our sense of happiness.
In writing Passion & Purpose, I monitored and observed how Facebook was impacting the lives of hundreds of young businesspeople. As I went about my research, it became clear that behind all the liking, commenting, sharing, and posting, there were strong hints of jealousy, anxiety, and, in one case, depression. Said one interviewee about a Facebook friend, "Although he's my best friend, I kind-of despise his updates." Said another "Now, Facebook IS my work day." As I dug deeper, I discovered disturbing by-products of Facebook's rapid ascension - three new, distressing ways in which the social media giant is fundamentally altering our daily sense of well-being in both our personal and work lives.
First, it's creating a den of comparison. Since our Facebook profiles are self-curated, users have a strong bias toward sharing positive milestones and avoid mentioning the more humdrum, negative parts of their lives. Accomplishments like, "Hey, I just got promoted!" or "Take a look at my new sports car," trump sharing the intricacies of our daily commute or a life-shattering divorce. This creates an online culture of compe ion and comparison. One interviewee even remarked, "I'm pretty compe ive by nature, so when my close friends post good news, I always try and one-up them."
Comparing ourselves to others is a key driver of unhappiness. Tom DeLong, author of Flying Without a Net, even describes a "Comparing Trap." He writes, "No matter how successful we are and how many goals we achieve, this trap causes us to recalibrate our accomplishments and reset the bar for how we define success."And as we judge the entirety of our own lives against the top 1% of our friends' lives, we're setting impossible standards for ourselves, making us more miserable than ever.
Second, it's fragmenting our time. Not surprisingly, Facebook's "horizontal" strategy encourages users to log in more frequently from different devices. My interviewees regularly accessed Facebook from the office, at home through their iPads, and while out shopping on their smartphones. This means that hundreds of millions of people are less "present" where they are. Sketching out a mind-numbing presentation for the board meeting? Perhaps it's time to reply to your messages. Stuck in traffic? It's time to browse your newsfeed. Recounted one interviewee, "I almost got hit by a car while using Facebook crossing the street."
Leaving the risk of real physical harm aside, the issue with this constant "tabbing" between real-life tasks and Facebook is what economists and psychologists call "switching costs," the loss in productivity associated with changing from one task to another. Famed author Dr. Srikumar Rao attributes mindfulness over mul asking as one of his ten steps to happiness at work. He argues that constant distractions lead to late and poor-quality output, negatively impacting our sense of self-worth.
Last, there's a decline of close relationships. Gone are the days where Facebook merely complemented our real-life relationships. Now, Facebook is actually winning share of our core, off-line interactions. One participant summed it up simply: "We Facebook chat instead of meeting up. It's easier."
As Facebook adds new features such as video chat, it is fast becoming a viable subs ute for meetings, relationship building, and even family get-togethers. But each time a Facebook interaction replaces a richer form of communication - such as an in-person meeting, a long phone call, or even a date at a restaurant - people miss opportunities to interact more deeply than Facebook could ever accommodate. As Facebook continues to add new features to help us connect more efficiently online, the battle to maintain off-line relationships will become even more difficult, which will impact their overall quality, especially in the long-run. Facebook is negatively affecting what psychology Professor Jeffrey Parker refers to as "the closeness properties of friendship."
So, what should we do to avoid these three traps? Recognizing that "quitting" Facebook altogether is unrealistic, we can still take measures to alter our usage patterns and strengthen our real-world relationships. Some useful tactics I've seen include blocking out designated time for Facebook, rather than visiting intermittently throughout the day; selectively trimming Facebook friends lists to avoid undesirable ex-partners and gossipy coworkers; and investing more time in building off-line relationships. The particularly courageous choose to delete Facebook from their smartphones and iPads, and log off the platform entirely for long stretches of time.
Is Facebook making you miserable? What other tips can you share?
This post was originally published in the Harvard Business Review. You can keep up with the author, Daniel Gulati, via Twitter.

[Summers]

Call me a grump, but I agree. I got rid of my facebook account about 3 months ago and it was liberating.

I used to feel guilty if I forgot to check in every couple days, and then I'd have to go through pages of missed posts to make sure I hadn't missed something important like someone announcing she's pregnant. But there's rarely anything important. I'll be applying for a teaching job in a few months and our professors have told us to shut down facebook/myspace/etc unless we can make them completely private and completely G-rated. Well, what's the point? So, I got out and don't regret it at all.

The only problem is I actually have missed a couple important announcements, like being invited to my brother's for Thanksgiving.

[lefty]

Call me a grump, but I agree. I got rid of my facebook account about 3 months ago and it was liberating.

I used to feel guilty if I forgot to check in every couple days, and then I'd have to go through pages of missed posts to make sure I hadn't missed something important like someone announcing she's pregnant. But there's rarely anything important. I'll be applying for a teaching job in a few months and our professors have told us to shut down facebook/myspace/etc unless we can make them completely private and completely G-rated. Well, what's the point? So, I got out and don't regret it at all.

The only problem is I actually have missed a couple important announcements, like being invited to my brother's for Thanksgiving.

Regarding the big events (pregnancy, invitations, etc)... pick the damn phone !

[pawe]

Regarding the big events (pregnancy, invitations, etc)... pick the damn phone !

Too much work.

[703 Spurz]

It's amazing how 90% of the time I loathe the status updates friends of mine have. A lot of them are complete bull like "Hungry", or "Watching Survivor".

Get a ing clue. How is this information that needs to be shared?

[cantthinkofanything]

It's amazing how 90% of the time I loathe the status updates friends of mine have. A lot of them are complete bull like "Hungry", or "Watching Survivor".

Get a ing clue. How is this information that needs to be shared?

Thanks for sharing that.

[Frenzy]

I missed a birthday party once for not reading a status. My sister was upset she was like "..so my party wasn't to important huh.." I was like "if I wasn't important enough to call then yeah I guess" I don't live on Facebook . She texts me now with important msgs as do my other fam and freinds. Lessons learned.

[MannyIsGod]

If you guys have friends that don't clue you in to important things facebook is not the problem.

[CosmicCowboy]

It's amazing how 90% of the time I loathe the status updates friends of mine have. A lot of them are complete bull like "Hungry", or "Watching Survivor".

Get a ing clue. How is this information that needs to be shared?

Much like your posts in Spurstalk.

[boutons_deux]

Why is Facebook Protecting Pro Rape Language and Abuse of Women?

Since August, tens of thousands of Internet activists have taken to social media to protest a social media giant — Facebook — for its apparent tolerance of user-created pages that make sexual violence into a punchline. The pages, with les like "Riding your Girlfriend softly, Cause you dont [sic] want to wake her up" and "Kicking s in the Vagina," have been common to Facebook for some time, but campaigns against them began when a Facebook representative commented to the BBC on its decision not to remove that kind of content, stating, “Just as telling a rude joke won’t get you thrown out of your local pub, it won’t get you thrown off Facebook.” The pub analogy comment circulated among feminist activists on Facebook, and it was quoted widely on blogs, sparking a series of pe ions that circulated for months, demanding the removal of the pages. When Facebook failed to respond, online activists organized a Twitter hashtag Day of Action, #notfunnyfacebook, to further pressure Facebook to enforce its own terms of service and hold its users accountable. Finally, following the Twitter action, Facebook elected to delete a few of the pages. It also allowed others to remain, so long as they were re led as parodies.

Worse, Facebook has time and again turned its terms of service against the people calling it to account: women, people, young people, and human rights activists, among others. Facebook has removed content in favor of breastfeeding, deeming it obscene. Facebook famously removed a photo of two men kissing at a protest for rights. Organizers behind the UK Uncut protests had their pages deactivated by Facebook, along with dozens of related causes against austerity measures. When activists launched a call for solidarity with an Egyptian victim of police brutality, “We Are All Khaled Said,” Facebook removed the page repeatedly for terms of service violations. Its originator had used, perhaps wisely, an anonymous account to post it. Then, once the page was reinstated and its role in sparking Egypt's revolution was international news, Facebook actually claimed the page as credit for advancing the Arab Spring.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/153406

[lefty]

If you guys have friends that don't clue you in to important things facebook is not the problem.

[mouse]

I got rid of my facebook account about 3 months ago

So then it's not still 800 million users like the OP claims.

[InRareForm]

THere is some truth to this, for sure.

[mrsmaalox]

I dunno, it seems to me if your life's happiness or misery has anything to do with Facebook, it's not Facebook's fault.

[ALVAREZ6]

I dunno, it seems to me if your life's happiness or misery has anything to do with Facebook, it's not Facebook's fault.

This is all that needs to be said. We aren't robots...we're human beings. If you don't have the capacity to pick apart why some parts of facebook may affect you negatively and how to adjust to it, you're a dumbass. Facebook isn't the problem for anyone...it's their own personality and intelligence (or lack thereof in most cases). Articles like these show how stupid some people are.

[cantthinkofanything]

This is all that needs to be said. We aren't robots...we're human beings. If you don't have the capacity to pick apart why some parts of facebook may affect you negatively and how to adjust to it, you're a dumbass. Facebook isn't the problem for anyone...it's their own personality and intelligence (or lack thereof in most cases). Articles like these show how stupid some people are.

You can say that about a lot of things. Food, drugs, alcohol, sex, TV, etc.

[greyforest]

any person's narcissism is directly correlated with the amount of useless they post on their facebook account

[jag]

I dunno, it seems to me if your life's happiness or misery has anything to do with Facebook, it's not Facebook's fault.

Exactly. Facebook or no Facebook, certain people's happiness depends too much on what other people are doing.

I know so many chicks that spend all day monitoring everyone's profiles. They have no idea how pathetic that really is.

[Ginobilly]

LMAO at all the dumb s who let facebook(and other social media sites) affect their personal lives. I got one a good solution: turn off the in computer and get a life! You know that society is getting extremely pussified when kids are committing suicide over what somebody put on their faceprick.

[leemajors]

LMAO at all the dumb s who let facebook(and other social media sites) affect their personal lives. I got one a good solution: turn off the in computer and get a life! You know that society is getting extremely pussified when kids are committing suicide over what somebody put on their faceprick.

not too great a solution if you can' communicate it effectively in any way, is it?

[Death In June]

Never bought into facebook, or other social networking sites. I'm not of fan of worlds colliding. Family needs to be separate from friends, and friends separate from colleagues.

[Ginobilly]

not too great a solution if you can' communicate it effectively in any way, is it?

who cares about communicating effectively. You shouldn't live based on what people think about you as a person on some stupid site. If you do, then you are missing the true essence of what makes live exciting. Working, spending quality time with family and GF, fishing and smoking a joint/drinking a beer with friends, going out on a date, traveling, learning new constructive relevant things, studying, helping out a charity, are all better things to do with your time rather than letting your mind and life rot on facebook.

[CuckingFunt]

A lot of these problems seem to have more to do with people being stupid than facebook being evil. I love facebook as a tool for coordinating plans between large groups of people, keeping in touch with friends/family who live a great distance from me, and sharing funny/odd/interesting things found on the interwebs.

But, that's all I use it for. I've had a profile for several years now and my friend list just recently hit 45. All of them are people I actually know, or am related to, and actually give a about. And they're also all people that I talk to and interact with in depth through letters, conversations, and other forms of actual, human interaction. Even checking facebook several times each day (part of my email checking routine, which school has made a frequent necessity) and having access on my phone, I would be surprised if my time spent on facebook averaged even five minutes per day. I really can't imagine how or why anyone would need to spend any more time than that.

[leemajors]

who cares about communicating effectively. You shouldn't live based on what people think about you as a person on some stupid site. If you do, then you are missing the true essence of what makes live exciting. Working, spending quality time with family and GF, fishing and smoking a joint/drinking a beer with friends, going out on a date, traveling, learning new constructive relevant things, studying, helping out a charity, are all better things to do with your time rather than letting your mind and life rot on facebook.

i think anyone you communicate with cares about communicating effectively. either way, facebook isn't making anyone miserable. people do that to themselves.

[JoeChalupa]

I like Facebook. It is what it is.