Facebook friends unintentionally hurt us, reveals new study

Scientists found that social media sites often make users feel left out and vulnerable to advertising messages

■ Facebook users see exchanges among friends that unintentionally excluded them

■ The posts in the study seem harmless at a glance

■ They can be interpreted in a way that people feel left out.

■ That feeling, as innocuous as it might seem, is not easily dismissed

■ Scientists took a critical look at FB and peculiarities of systems on which such sites operate.

■ 194 individuals participated in an experiment ensuring exposure to social exclusion

■ For the study, researchers created scenarios to mirror typical interactions on Facebook

■ The study was published in the journal Social Science Computer Review

■ The social exclusion present in these posts is not intentional, researchers said.

■ Users are not callously sharing exclusion information with their friends.

■ Social media sites, nevertheless, by design make most information available from one friend to another and consequences resulting from the interpretation of these messages are significant.

■ Offline research suggests that social exclusion evokes various physical and psychological consequences such as reduced complex cognitive thought,” said Jessica Covert, a graduate student at University at Buffalo.

When users see these exclusion signals from friends — who haven't really excluded them, but interpret it that way — they start to feel badly

— MICHAEL STEFANONE, Associate professor, University at Buffalo