Why Facebook Makes Us Depressed
shkspr.mobi
shkspr.mobi
My father passed a few years back, and now I have two daughters which she does not get to spend as much time with as she had made out in her mind prior. My grandparents raised me, same with my wife, as both of our parents worked fulltime jobs to make ends meet (the obvious American life of parents). However I'm proud to say that I am successful enough that I can work from home and my wife can stay home as well to raise our kids. This was a reality check for my mom and it's added up since then.
The other day she called me on how upset she was, as she always sees friends having so much fun on Facebook and how she feels more an more lonely. In comparison, I noticed how my wife would post a photo of my girls on Facebook and my mom would (typically) Like it within minutes. It seemed that she was literally sitting on Facebook all day trying to find out what was going on with the world rather than enjoying it herself as she's now retired. It was starting to make sense to me.
When I talked to her, I asked when the last time she saw people talking about how they had no money to go out and eat, had to work overtime, had to pay bills, were doing laundry, etc. queue the Lightbulb.
A few days later, she called me happier than I'd heard her in a while, explaining how she'll check Facebook in the morning and at night but the rest of the day she leaves the computer off and she felt worlds better already. Once I could explain that Facebook wants it's users to be engaged & sucked in for more, she realized how she got trapped.
== This is just what getting old its like. Its a bit of a shocker seing this happen to your parents.
The FB part is sort of tangential, though TBH.
It's no longer a case of "keeping up with the Joneses" - you now have to keep
up with everyone you've ever met, no matter what the cost!
Also, I see lots of stuff on Facebook that isn't upbeat bragging. Prominent examples just from the past week include death of a family member and a friend starting chemo. Possibly this is an age thing, or a consequence of the fact that I prune superficial relationships from my Facebook, but I have a hard time relating to the experience this writer describes. (Also, while I don't want to diagnose over the internet, it's possible that FB makes the author depressed because he's already prone to depression.)
You're quite right about adding everyone you ever knew - thankfully I grew out of that phase fairly quickly.
So, when I detect that on Facebook, I have learned to dismiss it and perhaps pity them just a tiny bit.
Clues: People who seem to be super happy 24/7/365- not many people actually are! Also, people prone to bragging OR "humble bragging"
Nothing wrong with incessant posting... it might indeed be fun... but I think Facebook is not the best outlet for it. This will only become apparent years from now when these folks look at their friends who have little to no posting history, with envy.
I have friends who still have not joined Facebook. I admire them; and I expect to envy them in due course. They will be blissfully free from the annoyances every Facebook user wil be facing.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_a...
Now I am depressed, and I do not even like Vegas.
It also reminds me of a humorous video from the MySpace era about what was called the "MySpace angle" — people use the best possible view of themselves for their profile picture, which potentially means obscuring some less desirable aspects. This can easily be extended to any other aspect of today's digital self-presentation.
"I just got a bonus at work because I worked my ass off!"
"I got nothing, thanks for making me feel like a pile of shit!"
Why not be happy for your friends? If I see that my friends are on vacation, or enjoying their lives, I feel genuinely happy for them. I don't feel jealous. And they certainly aren't posting on Facebook to make their friends feel jealous.
The author should come to grips with the fact that the world doesn't revolve around him, and that if he doesn't post anything no one will notice or even care. This whole "keeping up with the Joneses" is a phenomenon he has created himself, and if he can't handle the fact that other people are actually enjoying successes in their lives, then he should definitely log off from Facebook.
Is Facebook really to blame here?
I'd reserve judgment on anything before having a good shower, dressing in fresh clothes, and eating some real food. Plus lots of water and a nap or workout, if necessary. Biology > Internet ;).
I really don't like implications of this. On one hand, we have all of media bombarding us with sad, tragic or stupid stories every single moment. Many people (myself included) stop reading general news and/or watching TV, because the only thing they get from it is feeling that everything is bad and about to fall apart. But on the other hand, if we can't handle the success stories - because we get jealous or depressed - then what kind of news can we actually process without harming ourselves?
Would you still travel if you couldn't update your friends about it in near real time?
Don't you feel that the time spent on writing/contemplating what to write on the facebook pages would be better spent enjoying yourself in your new destination, making contact with people there rather than keeping score?
If it's just a weekend that's barely time enough to take in a new place (for me).
In this case you get a moments view during which in all likelihood nobody will fuzz.
In this article we see a moments view chosen by the authors friends to be post-worthy.
And that's when it's not just irritating me with the out-of-order feed. I mean, seriously, I'm a CS person and I understand getting performance gains by delivering potentially-wrong results, but given that I only get about 10 posts a week, seeing things off by 3-5 days in the sort order seems almost malicious.
Also please consider submitting the deceased person for 'memorialization,' which, if successful, should stop him from appearing in your People You May Know: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=305593649477238
This doesn't seem to work correctly on iPhone though. Changing to top stories seems to get them in chronological order for some strange reason.
In contrast, OP's blog uses sans-serif for everything which is why most users probably see it with Arial or Helvetica.
Proxima Sans is a great font, but not free. The most similar free fonts would probably be either Lato or Open Sans.
Regardless of wether you think svbtle is a bunch of elitist wankers, there is no valid reason for appropriating their style. Furthermore, regardless of ethics, it is a distraction from your words. To the extent that the svbtle brand is built up, your choice in theme becomes more and more a statement instead of presentation. "Does the author dislike the svbtle network and is trying to drive them into obscurity, or does this person really like the network and wants to be associated with them even without permission"
"Isn't this unoriginal?
Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal. See the original ["inspiration" ( http://archives.drawar.com/ ) for svbtle]."
I, personally feel the same way. Enough to have deleted my account. And somehow, not witnessing a constant flux of achievements and instagrammed food is keeping me rather calm so far.
He starts out all "I this, I that", but soon moves on to "our mental health", "your friends", "you now have to keep up with everyone you've ever met", etc., and for grand generalization, "it's just that perhaps we, as a species, aren't yet used to dealing with a constant flood of our friends' successes".
The fact that Facebook now displays "friend of friend" things probably only exacerbates the issue: a large proportion of your updates are likely to come from people with anomalously busy social lives, who are friends of many people and make it into many other people's feeds. And the ones you take note of, likely even more so: the person who did nothing and didn't post about it doesn't really register.
Life isn't about having amazing experiences.
It's about making mediocre experiences look amazing on Facebook.
I'm sure some people hide me. That's ok. I travel constantly and always look like I'm having fun. I do try to keep it to a dull roar on facebook though.
The OP seems like a manifestation of one aspect of this.
Of course we don't see the negatives. Nobody's going to post that they're depressed or their life is a mess, or post pictures where they look bad. Remember that it's not the whole picture.
Good grief.