There seems to be nothing new under the sun, except that now studies have found that there is such a phenomenon as Facebook envy. Yes, it’s true. The green-eyed monster rears its ugly head while we are supposed to be connecting and sharing in others’ happiness. And the studies show Facebook can actually make people miserable. Who knew?

Joint German study

Facebook is the world’s largest online social network and had over 1 billion active users by September 2012.

The German universities of Humboldt and Darmstadt ran a joint study where they profiled the habits of 600 Facebook users and found that 1 in 3 people felt worse and more dissatisfied with their lives after visiting the Facebook site.

And the biggest cause of this resentment? Other people’s vacation photos.

The second most common cause of unhappiness and resentment among the study’s Facebook users was social interaction, such as that stemming from birthday greetings or how many “likes” comments or photos would get.

Strong words such as lonely, angry and frustrated are being used to describe the feelings of those with Facebook envy.

Envy trends

    • The study found women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness
    • People in their mid-30s are apparently more likely to envy portrayals of family happiness such as happy family snaps
    • Facebook envy caused men to post content about their accomplishments and caused women to stress their social lives and good looks.

Other interesting findings of the study

    • People who spend more hours on Facebook are more likely to believe that their Facebook friends are happier
    • The more friends they had that they did not know personally, the higher the likelihood that they would believe other people to be happier
    • Users who interacted more face-to-face with their friends were less likely to believe them to be happier.

 

Sources
www.psychologytoday.com
www.reuters.com
www.today.com
www.wikipedia.com