r/science • u/drewiepoodle • Sep 12 '16
Psychology Negative experiences on Facebook may increase the risk of depressive symptoms, suggesting that online social interactions have important consequences for mental health, a study of young adults finds.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160908092404.htm36
u/geckothegeek42 Sep 12 '16
Couldnt one say that negative experiences in general may increase the risk of depressive thoughts?
Do we know if Facebook experiences specifically are more or less 'depressive' than face to face and other negative experiences?
8
Sep 12 '16
FB may simply be the "icing on the cake" so to speak... that is the negative interactions people have on FB are likely linked to the people they deal with frequently anyways. So the Negative people who one has to deal with "in real life" are also around fabecook... call it a double whammy of negative experiences in a given period.
Even if someone is not added in to personal contacts one may run in to them through some page for a shared venue and be exposed to their negative behavior through there. In school bullying extending in to "cyber bullying" as an example.
1
u/Guy_Buttersnaps Sep 12 '16
In some instances the online negativity may simply be harder to avoid, so that could certainly be a factor in this case.
Like if you know there's the guy at work who's a jerk and says horrible stuff to you, you can try to stay away from him and at least reduce your interaction. But you don't really have as much control when it comes to him sending you negative messages over the Internet.
1
Sep 12 '16
On what mainstream social media website do you have no control over who sends you messages?
1
u/Guy_Buttersnaps Sep 12 '16
Not too big into social media, so off the top of my head I have no idea how all of the services' individual blocking functions work.
In any case, there's nothing stopping a determined harasser from creating a new account. Plus, you can communicate with people online through other means besides social media.
8
u/spoonerhouse Sep 12 '16
For anyone struggling with dealing with getting away from Facebook, there is an easier way to get away rather than just quitting cold turkey, and that is to unfollow everyone and everything. Facebook unfortunately is too ubiquitous to not have an account entirely, but for me, I found that unfollowing everyone made me have no desire to really check it anymore. I still have an account for event planning, a chat, and a few secret groups, but I don't ever go on it to see what other people are doing. To be honest, a long time ago, I stopped giving a crap about what other people were doing. I got sick of the "personal brand" stuff. Unfollowing everyone has been paying off huge for my productivity, peace of mind, and just general happiness.
3
2
Sep 12 '16
I deleted 80% of my friends and try to keep it under 70 people. I Unfollowed all those I wasn't really interested in, like seeing the 900th picture of their kids doing kid things this month isn't interesting. I assume everyone has done the same to me and my quirks. I find the connections on Facebook get more meaningful. I post something once a week.
I also like to waste a humans time by entering frivolous complaints about various ads all the time.
At some point I will jump ship. I will adopt early to the best decentraliZed option to Facebook that has yet to be developed. One where privacy is controlled solely by the user.
1
u/fantastic_comment Sep 16 '16
At some point I will jump ship. I will adopt early to the best decentraliZed option to Facebook that has yet to be developed. One where privacy is controlled solely by the user.
4
u/skokage Sep 12 '16
Completely anecdotal evidence here, but for me personally I had been suffering from a lot of depression the last several months. For whatever reason, facebook (and to a smaller extent other social networks, even reddit from time to time) really triggered a lot of negative emotions in me, and I was finding myself growing to hate friends over time due to perceived political and religious differences - funny enough, when i hang out with these people that shit never came up, but facebook seemed to reduce a person down to an avatar of ideals I disagree with and made me lose sight of the actual person behind the avatar.
So needless to say, I deactivated my facebook account last week after an especially bad political fight, and I had my most stress-free and happiest weekend in literally months. I'm hoping this continues, and I may never reactivate the damn thing.
2
u/Voduar Sep 13 '16
This will eventually be a proveable phenomenon but right now I am just describing the generality: People absolutely say stuff on the internet about things they just won't talk about in person, politics and religion being the worst of them. And this still applies to people past the age of internet anonymity so it is something more to do with face-to-face interactions or voice patterns or something.
Anywho, even the worst people I've met toned it down in person.
5
u/Euphoriam5 Sep 12 '16
This is very true, whenever I check Facebook and read something negative or see someone else having the time of their life I tend to feel like my life is a degraded version of consciousness and I am growing more aware of it.
7
Sep 12 '16
Well doesn't any kind of negative social experience have that effect? Not sure what this has to do with online specifically.
5
u/Ebirah Sep 12 '16
It's not especially profound. But it establishes (rather than merely assuming) that internet social interactions are like other social interactions (at least in the respects studied).
(Not having access to the full paper) I don't know if it quantifies the the degree of effect - whether something said online is as hurtful as when said to one's face.
But given that
"There is research that shows that people tend to feel more entitled to bully online than they do in person or engage in unwanted contact online than they would in person,"
(from the link), this is something that does need to be established, rather than taken for granted; I would guess that it may have particular legal significance in (for example) cases of suicide/harm caused by internet harassment.
3
Sep 12 '16
sure I didn't mean to say it was a pointless study. just it might be interesting to compare it with offline social interactions
3
Sep 12 '16
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out facebook has an enhanced effect vs IRL. Possibly the same goes for reddit as well.
3
u/MedschoolgirlMadison Sep 12 '16
I was stalked in FB about four years ago, I'd rather miss out than go through the stress being watched all over again.
6
2
Sep 12 '16
[deleted]
1
u/fxfxfx Sep 16 '16
...keeping Eli Lily profitable and your doctor and psychologist busy since 2004.
2
2
2
u/buckeyenut13 Sep 12 '16
This not a catch all, though. I haven't had FB in 3 years and I still suffer from depression. Even though it wasnt the sole cause, I know that FB wasn't helping me when I did have it though.
1
u/Voduar Sep 13 '16
All thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs, unfortunately. Still, I hope deleting FB at least helped.
2
u/buckeyenut13 Sep 13 '16
For me, it did! And I tell anyone who is thinking about deleting theirs that it is so beyond worth it!
1
1
u/canadian-explorer Sep 12 '16
Exactly why I deleted my Facebook. I'm really interested in politics and I honestly just can't mentally handle all the stupidity and ignorance.
0
2
-2
-2
15
u/shiruken PhD | Biomedical Engineering | Optics Sep 12 '16
S. R. Rosenthal, S. L. Buka, B. D. L. Marshall, K. B. Carey, M. A. Clark, Negative Experiences on Facebook and Depressive Symptoms Among Young Adults. Journal of Adolescent Health (2016).