I think you can feel great for them and bad for yourself at the same time
And how is it in any way different from the same people telling me this stuff at a pub? I don't think social media has anything to do with this.
As opposed to a real life social interaction, I can simply hit Unfollow on Facebook (so we stay Friends but I don't see your posts unless I look for them)...
And if you have to resort to unfollowing, you’re basically agreeing that it’s a problem.
Now I wonder whether you're pulling my leg.
I can understand the scale argument, but I can't see why it's a problem after I've unfollowed the problematic accounts.
At one point in my life, I unfollowed literally every FB friend I had - because I wanted to follow my groups but my friends' posts were too political and this kind of talk had a bad effect on me. I can't see why people just don't do that when social media makes them sad.
Let's say seeing a certain type of post makes someone sad, and that this causes that person's mind to wander, slowing or stopping their feed-scrolling for a moment now and then when they see such content. This means they're now stopped on the feed at a potentially vulnerable moment. There is now a monetary incentive for the feed curation algorithm to continue doling out the kind of posts that make the user sad, as well as placing targeted advertisements right with them - ideally ones that exploit the negative emotion in some way.
I realize not everyone reacts the same way. Maybe they speed up their scrolling instead. The kinds of behavior that social media feed curation algorithms track and act upon is opaque, and I think that lack of transparency and accountability can easily have unfortunate consequences.
And being "the lord of your destiny" is already not applicable to most people, except in an abstract, meaningless sense that a person can always decide for themselves. That doesn't mean they can wish reality away. (E.g. "Yeah, I have $200K in student debt, no job prospects after looking for 10 months, and my spouse got sick, but I can do whatever I decide").
And rationally being aware of this doesn't help either: you still get the raw first experience at an emotional level.
Envy. You can be genuinely happy for them, but then be sad that your life isn't going as well. I think this compounded by the idea that a lot of people don't feel like the lords of their destiny, more leaves in a river unable to fight the currents.
Which of course adds to the stress of "Why can't I be better and more like [friend]?". Which may or may not lead to productive self-reflection (more likely not in my experience)
>And how is it in any way different from the same people telling me this stuff at a pub? I don't think social media has anything to do with this.
Scale, I would imagine. If it was one or two friends I think it's easier to rationalise, but when you see friends-of-friends and celebrities "living their best life", every day, while you struggle to keep your head above water, it takes a toll.