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I think this is an interesting and fair article, but based on the evidence discussed, it isn't "Facebook makes me sad" but rather "my unhealthy comparisons of m

I think this is an interesting and fair article, but based on the evidence discussed, it isn't "Facebook makes me sad" but rather "my unhealthy comparisons of my own happiness to the happiness of others makes me sad." Sure, divorcing your sense of self-worth from your perceptions of others is easier said than done, but it's a healthier pursuit than attacking one of the thousands of ways other people demonstrate their surface superiority.

tjr 16y ago
I think this has happened a lot. Some new technology makes an existing problem more obvious or more prevalent, and the problem is blamed on the technology. Technology may amplify social woes, but it certainly does not cause them.
- quanticle 16y ago
  You also see this a lot with the "cyber-bullying" crowd. Technology did not cause bullying, and technology cannot fix bullying. The only thing technology enables is for the bullies to act faster. Rumors can now spread through the entire school in minutes, rather than hours.
  - oregonjoe 16y ago
    isn't speeding up and increasing the reach of bullying making bullying more powerful then? maybe a bad comparison: but isn't that like saying the truck didn't change the way we move stuff, it just allowed us to move more things, quicker.
    - Dylan16807 16y ago
      It also made it much cheaper and therefore effective. Is speed very important to bullying?
      - sp332 16y ago
        It's more pervasive. If you're bullied at school but loved at home, it might be tolerable. But if you're being bullied via email or Facebook 24/7, you never get a chance to "decompress".
      - oregonjoe 16y ago
        velocity could be . . bullying instances/day? who knows, but increasing the amount of bullying sure is.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I suppose that depends on your theory of causation. =] It's true that technology, perhaps barring technology that directly alters the human brain, can never cause any psychological or social change except via humans using it. But if, for example, people are unhappy when they frequently compare their lives to others, and a particular technology increases how likely they are to do so, I'd say that the technology has caused an increase in unhappiness, via the mechanism of increasing comparisons. Can happen on the positive side also. I'm comfortable pointing to software as a "cause" for certain kinds of increases in productivity, even though of course it's only the fact that people are using it to do things that increases productivity.
d4nt 16y ago
I do think that site design has something to do with it though. Like the article says, there's only a "like" button on facebook, no "hate" button. I find it interesting how seemingly subtle differences between facebook's "like", HN's down vote rep threshold, and slashdot's variation in types of up vote create very different cultures.
acconrad 16y ago
But I really think it should be taken with a grain of salt: I think it's comforting to realize that "hey, life isn't a bed of roses for everyone else either." That's sort of a "glass half full" way to look at something negative...the truth is everyone projects themselves to be better than they are, but deep down we all struggle. So I take from this article exactly what Michael Stipe once said... "Everybody hurts." And that alone can make it suck less, to know that everyone puts up a facade and you're no worse than anyone else.

tjr 16y ago

I think this has happened a lot. Some new technology makes an existing problem more obvious or more prevalent, and the problem is blamed on the technology. Technology may amplify social woes, but it certainly does not cause them.

quanticle 16y ago
You also see this a lot with the "cyber-bullying" crowd. Technology did not cause bullying, and technology cannot fix bullying. The only thing technology enables is for the bullies to act faster. Rumors can now spread through the entire school in minutes, rather than hours.
- oregonjoe 16y ago
  isn't speeding up and increasing the reach of bullying making bullying more powerful then? maybe a bad comparison: but isn't that like saying the truck didn't change the way we move stuff, it just allowed us to move more things, quicker.
  - Dylan16807 16y ago
    It also made it much cheaper and therefore effective. Is speed very important to bullying?
    - sp332 16y ago
      It's more pervasive. If you're bullied at school but loved at home, it might be tolerable. But if you're being bullied via email or Facebook 24/7, you never get a chance to "decompress".
    - oregonjoe 16y ago
      velocity could be . . bullying instances/day? who knows, but increasing the amount of bullying sure is.
_delirium 16y ago
I suppose that depends on your theory of causation. =] It's true that technology, perhaps barring technology that directly alters the human brain, can never cause any psychological or social change except via humans using it. But if, for example, people are unhappy when they frequently compare their lives to others, and a particular technology increases how likely they are to do so, I'd say that the technology has caused an increase in unhappiness, via the mechanism of increasing comparisons. Can happen on the positive side also. I'm comfortable pointing to software as a "cause" for certain kinds of increases in productivity, even though of course it's only the fact that people are using it to do things that increases productivity.

d4nt 16y ago

I do think that site design has something to do with it though. Like the article says, there's only a "like" button on facebook, no "hate" button. I find it interesting how seemingly subtle differences between facebook's "like", HN's down vote rep threshold, and slashdot's variation in types of up vote create very different cultures.

acconrad 16y ago

But I really think it should be taken with a grain of salt: I think it's comforting to realize that "hey, life isn't a bed of roses for everyone else either." That's sort of a "glass half full" way to look at something negative...the truth is everyone projects themselves to be better than they are, but deep down we all struggle. So I take from this article exactly what Michael Stipe once said... "Everybody hurts." And that alone can make it suck less, to know that everyone puts up a facade and you're no worse than anyone else.