Facebook Stalking: Should you do it?

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Facebook’s leading cause of depression is envy caused by something we all do too well Facebook stalking . My second source “If Facebook Use Causes Envy, Depression Could Follow” by Nathan Hurst explains a separate study where it was discovered that using Facebook causes envy and that leads to depression. Does that mean Facebook causes envy and I should rename my whole blog after Facebook envy? I’m not entirely sure because Margaret Duffy the professor behind the study says “that how Facebook users use the site makes a difference in how they respond to it.” The article goes into further depth talking about how the study found that students who use Facebook for connecting with friends weren’t depressed but if they were surveillance facebook users then they were likely to be depressed. I suppose that means every girl I know who stalks their exes and old friends are going to get depression? According to this source, that’s quite the case. It also suggests that seeing friends doing better than oneself will make them become envious and then depressed. I think a great example of this is when you see someone in a new relationship and then you’re sad because you want someone to take cute selfies with too. The whole study sums up with the fact that it shouldn’t be possible to get depression on Facebook as long as users post positive things about themselves and that should prevent the envy.

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My first blog post talked about how my first source did research to discover Facebook was a tool where we could find out if youngins had depression because they post symptoms through their statuses. I found with my second source it explained how Facebook actually made people depressed versus depressed people were using Facebook.

I had some new questions arise after reading this source such as: do people always experience depression when they feel jealous or only on Facebook? Why do we actually get jealous looking at others posts shouldn’t we feel happy for them? Does how much we Facebook stalk effect how depressed one might feel?

"If Facebook use Causes Envy, Depression could Follow." Targeted News Service, Washington, D.C., 2015 https://proxy1.aims.edu:2443/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1650734197?accountid=35907.

Facebook Depression's Pandora's box

Due to the high rise in young adults and teens getting depression psychologists and health advocates are now looking into the world’s #1 social media site Facebook for being the cause behind our youth ending up with suicidal thoughts and utter sadness.

I began wanting to research this topic after coming across some research from the YPAD (Youth Protection Advocates in Dance) from a professor in Colorado Springs who found a correlation with social media and girls self-esteem. It always seems that self-esteem and depression go hand in hand.

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The questions I had about the topic of Facebook depression include: Is Facebook a tool or the cause of Depression? Does Facebook make people feel lonely? Should people stay off of Facebook? I hope to engage some of these questions as I develop my research about how Facebook is attacking the young adults in our community.

The first source that I have decided to take on is “Feeling Bad on Facebook: Depression disclosures by college students on a Social Networking Site” by  Megan A Moreno, Lauren A Jelenchick, Katie G Egan,  Elizabeth Cox, Henry Young, Kerry E Gannon, and Tara Becker. The several doctors explore the study of college students in their area and went through and decided what type of statuses would classify a student as having depression. Their conclusion states “Our results suggest that displayed comments that meet criteria as symptoms of depression are disclosed on Facebook by approximately 25% of college students” (Moreno, et al.) I was curious to why there research was only around Facebook being a tool. All of the research they collected is based around how college students went through there day and posted statuses such as “I had a lousy day” or “I’m miserable.” My main question about their initial question and there finding is should there be more monitoring by health officials to find students who need help because they clearly pointed out that many college students are depressed or even maybe there friends or family reading these statuses. In the conclusion they also talked about how they found that the students they did find depressed posted repeated depressed statuses but only if they got some sort of reinforcement from their friends. The only thing that I find on that is yeah we share our hurt when we have a shoulder to cry on whether it be in real life or on social media.

The article was really helpful towards the start of my research because it is the first study around social media websites being a place where people share their depression like symptoms.

Moreno, Megan A et al. “Feeling Bad on Facebook: Depression Disclosures by College Students on a Social
Networking Site.” Depression and anxiety 28.6 (2011): 447–455. PMC. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.