Can Facebook make us less happy?

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

Did you know that your innovative,
life-changing creation “Facebook” has been making people less happy and has contributed
to low self esteem?

Sincerely,
A”friend”

Facebook is all about creating a façade. Why else would people post
pictures, statuses, relationship information, hobbies, interests, and even
political standpoints? It is because Facebook is all about showing others that
you have a “life” and look fun, adventurous and ultimately interesting, as
superficial as that sounds.
With this central idea at hand, I was glancing at the Yahoo News top headlines the other day and
stopped the little fast forward button when I saw the subscript “Can Facebook
make us less happy?” Interested in the title, I, an avid user of Facebook,
skimmed the text, seeing what the author had to say. The article’s main point:
people who spend more time on Facebook are less happy than those who spend less
time on Facebook. I couldn’t agree more; in fact, I could personally relate.
Logically, this idea is understandable.
Facebook’s news feed allows users to see their friends most recent
updates, such as statuses, photos and relationship statuses. As Montesquieu
once said "If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to
be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them
happier than they are.” When surveying classmates on how Facebook could make
one unhappy, one person said “I feel like Facebook encourages constant
comparison to others lives…which encourages self-deprecation and feelings of
exclusion”. Almost everything shared on Facebook is positive such as pictures and
videos from parties, and other social events. Rarely do people post negative
things showing failure because they want to keep up the image they have projected,
creating a constant comparison between everyone’s social lives.
I’ll admit it: I’m a sad victim of the Facebook culture. Most, if not
all, of my pictures show me smiling and looking like I always have a good time.
Am I always happy? Absolutely not! Like everyone else, I have my ups and downs
and the happy pictures are just a positive front I show the virtual world. For
example, two years ago I was sadly disappointed when my date for Junior Prom who
I thought was cool, funny and outgoing was actually shy, awkward and couldn’t
seem to dance. In short, it was a bad night. However, I remember posting
numerous happy photos with captions like “I couldn’t have asked for a better
date! <3” to show that I had fun. Later, a friend mentioned that she saw my
photos on Facebook and told me I looked pretty and seemed to have a good time.
She revealed she was jealous after logging into Facebook and seeing so many
pictures of people having fun with their dates. Through Facebook, I was able to
pretend that I had “fun”, and anyone who saw my pictures on their newsfeed
might have compared their night and have wondered “Why couldn’t I have fun like
that?”
Besides the fact that pictures on Facebook might be deceivingly happy,
statuses on Facebook could also lower a person’s morale. Sometimes we see
things that we are better off not seeing. For instance, when college
acceptances and rejections came around last spring, everyone was nervous and
anxious to see the results. My first choice was Princeton and I was waitlisted,
which was sad for me because I invested a lot of time in their application and
researching the school. That day I logged on Facebook and saw a lot of my friend’s
statuses such as “PRINCETON CLASS OF 2015 HERE I COME!” and “Got into
PRINCETON! Go tigers!! J” Of course I was happy for my friends that
were accepted. However, seeing the statuses was like a virtual slap in the face
telling me that I wasn’t good enough and that my peers ultimately were. After
that, I decided to stay off Facebook for two weeks.
In addition to seeing statuses that you might not want to see, many
users have to deal with seeing unwanted posts from ex-girlfriends/boyfriends
and former friends. My ex-boyfriend Chris barely ever surprised me with gifts
when we were together. For some reason the lovey-dovey stuff he does for his
current girlfriend always shows up on my newsfeed. Does it bother me? Of
course! Do I really want to know that he bought his girlfriend roses and
chocolates for Valentines Day while I was single? Not really. To be honest,
seeing these posts just make me jealous and make me wonder why that couldn’t be
me. Ultimately, seeing cute, relationship posts only makes me compare myself to
others and question my personality and appearance.
Sometimes things seem so much better than they actually are. All of the
smiling pictures on Facebook may make it seem like everyone else is having a
good time, but that is as fake as airbrushed and Photoshopped pictures in
magazines. So what was that Yahoo article’s solution to unhappy users on
Facebook? “If you are looking for a way to cheer yourself up, the researchers
say you may do well to log off. Call your best friend instead.”

Works cited:
Facebook: Friends’ happy pictures make you sad? (2012, January). Retrieved
February 6,2012, from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/feeling-sad-facebook-could-be-the-cause/