Is Facebook an accurate reflection of people's lives?

By John Disque

ABC News recently did a segment on Facebook about how other people's lives (or seemingly lives) affect the person on the friend's list.

The study shows that people are often comparing their own lives to their Facebook friends, and it can lead to depression.

People who were surveyed stated that they often feel jealous of other people when seeing pictures of them on vacation, going to shows, and being with their spouse or lovers.

When seeing the results of some of his friends, a Stanford University student started researching the subject. He asked various people how happy they thought various friends were then he researched how happy the friends actually were. What he found in 100% of the cases is that people were overestimating how great their friends actually were. He then found out that the more they overestimated their friends the more upset they were with their own lives.

It's a fact that most people spend their time on the social media outlets while they're alone. In some cases, the person is already somewhat depressed and using the social sites for comfort. When they see pictures and read stories of their friends who don't appear to be alone it's proving to them that they somehow failed which, of course, magnifies their depression.

The human being is a naturally competitive animal. We are always comparing ourselves with the other person. It's nothing new. The social sites simply made it easier for us to do it, but it did not give us the whole picture. Many people only post the good stuff on Facebook. It's perfectly natural for someone to keep away the skeletons, exclude the depressing stuff and to post only positive things.

If someone shares every waking moment of their life on Facebook (the good, the average and the great), there's a very big chance that they need a life and they're either going to bore everyone silly or they're going to lose more friends than they gain. People should already know and accept this when joining Facebook, but apparently it needs to be said.

Facebook is magnifying "the grass is always greener effect," but the reality is: most people went to the dollar store, bought a whole lot of spray paint and painted their grass green so you wouldn't see that it's actually just as brown as yours.

Published January 30, 2011