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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.
Hey Monika: Great Blog
ReplyDeleteI like thinking about this because there are so many different variables that may go into it.
What drives us, as humans to feel the need to "stalk". We know that we will likely get upset, but why must we be so completely connected to everything good and bad? I wonder if there is any way to revert these type of urges. Then there are numerical statistical questions such as: Does the amount of stalking per day/week/month show any fluctuation in depressive or manic states? More or less? I'm quite curious to see the expansion on this topic!
Trevor glad you like my blog.
DeleteI like how expansive your questions are. To start off with your first question the article "If Facebook use Causes Envy, Depression could Follow" says that people engage in "surveillance use" to see who is living a better life than them. I think that expands to the overlying issue that humans are always envious and want to be the best. As far as your second question I believe beyond a doubt that it's human nature to perceive things as good or bad but in social media it's pushed on you. For instance you see a picture of a cute puppy you press the like button and the other hand you see some political issue you don't agree with and press the angry button. It's almost as if Facebook forces you to think about everything you see whether you wanted to or not. The only way it may be possible to revert these urges is put our phones down but that's choice were not really willing to make, so the next best option would be to take away the tools: the like button, the reactions, and maybe even the comments. Your last question is actually what my last blog post's article was trying to discover with their study. I found it conflicting between the two articles because the one for this article says it starts the minute one feels envious while the study says that it had to make you feel bad about your own life multiple times before you could possibly feel depressive. The only reason the second statement may have been is because that's how they diagnose depression is by how long you have felt that certain way.
Do you think that Facebook should heighten their security measures between profiles in regards to posts that are made, to possibly reduce the depression? Maybe a required amount of privacy settings to insure only the people who are selected in the share section can see the post?
ReplyDeleteI may need a little clarification on your first question but from what I think I understood is that Facebook should stop post that are about depressive things. I believe Facebook already has tried to do just that by implementing depression into their self reporting flagging system. As far as your second question I don't think the amount of privacy matters because we choose who we want to see on our Facebook. I think maybe Facebook should have pop up that says hey you have looked at this page 20 times today maybe we should take you back to home page if we really wanted to stop that behavior.
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