Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook
can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according
to German researchers.
A study conducted jointly by two German
universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social
network that now has over one billion users and has produced an
unprecedented platform for social comparison.
The researchers
found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and
more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without
contributing were affected the most.
"We were surprised by how
many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving
them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova
from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt
University told Reuters.
"From our observations some of these
people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the
site," said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be
reaching saturation point in some markets.
Researchers from
Humboldt University and from Darmstadt's Technical University found
vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half
of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.
Social
interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could
compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their
Facebook friends and how many "likes" or comments were made on photos
and postings.
"Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with
users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their
vacations and socialize," the researchers said in the report "Envy on
Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" released on
Tuesday.
"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."
They
found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family
happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.
These
feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about
their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray
themselves in a better light.
Men were shown to post more
self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their
accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.
The
researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people
with the results to be presented at a conference on information systems
in Germany in February.
The first study looked at the scale, scope
and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at
how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.
The
researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they
expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal
feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.
"From a provider's
perspective, our findings signal that users frequently perceive Facebook
as a stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger
platform sustainability," the researchers concluded.
© Thomson Reuters 2012