Facebook can make you feel bad
What to do if social network exhausts you.
We hear often about the potential negative effects social media can have on our well being. Now, some of that concern is coming straight from Facebook.
The social media giant admitted in a post Friday that pouring through Facebook leads to users feeling worse about themselves — a realization that individuals and social research studies have made but which was a surprising admission from a company that’s continuously on the hunt for new ways to get its members to stay.
Citing academic research, Facebook revealed users who passively consume their News Feed — such as simply scrolling through what their friends post — tend to harbor bad feelings about themselves afterward.
“As parents, each of us worries about our kids’ screen time and what ‘connection’ will mean in 15 years,” reads a joint blog post from David Ginsberg, Facebook’s director of research, and Moira Burke, a research scientist with the company. “We also worry about spending too much time on our phones when we should be paying attention to our families.”
Concern about the downside of widespread social media use has extended far beyond whether we should be spending time more wisely: As the researchers pointed out, it has been linked to teen depression and lower feelings of self worth.
A study by Yale and UC San Diego researchers published in the Harvard Business Review earlier this year found consistently liking others’ content and clicking links predicted a reduction in self-reported mental health.
A survey by a U.K. charity earlier this year among teens and young adults found most said social media worsened their anxiety; Facebookowned Instagram was the worst.
But Facebook’s conclusion wasn’t that users should just delete the app.
Facebook said a joint study it conducted with Carnegie Mellon University found users who sent or received more messages, comments and timeline posts reported improvements in social support, depression and loneliness.
“Simply broadcasting status updates wasn’t enough,” they wrote. They said similar studies found users who actively consumed Facebook by participating in conversations with friends or reminiscing about past experiences were better off.