14 ms·

If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation

by id 4y ago

If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. The problems I have with social media are that - it steals a lot of time - a lot of content gets me by evoking negative emotion - it's taxing to get exposed to so many different ideas, clips, heated discussions, etc. Makes we wanna throw away my phone and live in the woods

coldtea 4y ago
>If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? As if regular people don't compare themselves with others and just enjoy the success of everybody, without considering if they are falling behind or not?
- id 4y ago
  You can compare yourself and enjoy the success of someone else.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    In limited capacity, in regular life, yes. In social media, the constant highlights of the successes of other people makes you miserable for yourself, whether you feel happy for others too or not. Besides an experience many can verify, it's also quite well studied, including in the linked article.
    - cortesoft 4y ago
      > In social media, the constant highlights of the successes of other people makes you miserable for yourself That might be how it makes you (and others) feel, but that doesn't mean everyone feels that way. There are people on this thread trying to say that it doesn't make them feel that way, but they keep being dismissed. The studies don't say EVERYONE feels that way, so to act like they are WRONG about how they feel is overly dismissive.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  The healthy spin on that is seeing possibilities for making progress towards one's own goals. Someone losing weight or getting fit/getting a new cert, etc makes me think "I can do that!"
eafkuor 4y ago
> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.
- laputan_machine 4y ago
  If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.
  - bennyp101 4y ago
    An actual friend then sure, but most people I know have like 500+ “friends” so I think people are less likely to have that reaction to everyone in the timeline.
    - laputan_machine 4y ago
      Oh I see yeah we're couched in the language of FB. I meant real friends, I noped out of most social media (ex. HN) in 2017. I don't miss it!
      - bennyp101 4y ago
        Same (apart from a fake FB profile so I know what's happening in the local village groups). I never really had a problem with FB, just the constant cringy posts made me leave! But dumping Twitter a couple of years ago was the best thing I ever did - it was just making me angry every time I started browsing it!
  - mojzu 4y ago
    Personally I'm happy when good things are happening for family, friends and other people, but depending on my mood it can also trigger feelings of FOMO/anxiety (why isn't that happening for me, what am I missing, etc.). My guess is depending on the person and their current state that falling into a pattern of focussing on the latter rather then the former is easier when using social media. Which can then be a bit of a vicious cycle because cutting yourself off from social media may also mean you miss events that you could have participated in
lrvick 4y ago
Having actually thrown away my phone, and lived in the woods, I can say I recommend the former as a fantastic mental health improvement. Living in the woods, not so much.
- orzig 4y ago
  My very favorite part of HN is when someone is like “I’m actually an experienced XYZer, here’s the inside scoop” usually for a niche industry, now for niche lifestyles. Thanks for the data point! Can you say more about the experience? Where did you end up?
- guerrilla 4y ago
  What's wrong with the woods?
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Mosquitos. Poison ivy. If he is growing his own food - a variety of animals will be eating the veggies. Rabbits, cabbage moths (evil bastards), groundhogs, raccoons...
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Cabbage moths are the worst... The other things seem pretty avoidable though...
      - RajT88 4y ago
        I guess the other animals there's strategies to deal with them. Poison ivy sneaks up on you. Young plants can be hard to see, and if you're like me, you won't know you've been exposed for a few days... And then it's ALL OVER.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Makes we wanna throw away my phone and live in the woods What I tried to aim for in Digital Vegan 1[] is to get people thinking about tech as a healthy balance. It is actually rather common to have these extreme swings, all or nothing, total technological connection or living off berries in a woodland shack. It's called splitting in psychology, and the conditions around technology are geared to maximise it. That's partly because it is so aggressive, in it's marketing, and peer pressure, in it's network effects created by deliberate lack of interoperability, by the way it is forced upon people. Young people are constantly bullied into over-connection by the idea they will be "left behind", that they will "miss out", and that a total cybernetic society of "ubiquitous" technology is "inevitable". All a total crock of shit of course. Nobody wants that except a few silicon valley pushers. But if you are immersed in that toxic narrative, which comes through the medium itself, it's hard for anyone to exercise rational choice, self-control and use technology in a moderate, healthy way. So to me it makes sense to define "hacker" as someone who has mastery over technology. A master is not dominated by their own creations and desires. Part of mastery is choosing exactly how much, and what type of technology to use, and not allowing other people to foist that upon you. Real hackers make technological choices that may marginalise them, instead of just following the crowd. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net
- funcDropShadow 4y ago
  > So to me it makes sense to define "hacker" as someone who has mastery over technology. A master is not dominated by their own creations and desires. Part of mastery is choosing exactly how much, and what type of technology to use, and not allowing other people to foist that upon you. I like that definition and they way you argue. But don't forget that i.e. Meta and all other social networks are paying hords of hackers to screw with your emotions. I.e. you have a really capable opponent. Why do I claim that social networks and other pay hackers to screw with our emotions? Actually I am convinced they don't care at all about the emotions of their users. They only care about their attention. Since, that is what is being sold to advertisers. Therefore, they do anything to prohibit users from staying in control of their social media use. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to use social media responsibly and healthy, but it is not easy.
bmj 4y ago
There's an essay[0] in the latest edition of The New Atlantis titled "Reading Ourselves to Death," and the premise is that our brains are really not currently wired in such a way to take in so much information via text. I think you are correct -- that we should feel good about a friend's vacation, or ideal job. However, in real life, we are exposed to those things in a much more limited way: you meet a friend for coffee and they show you photos of their trip, or a good friend calls to share their joy at the new job. Yes, absolutely, emotionally healthy humans should feel good about that. However, social media skews the equation, heavily. First, EVERYONE on your feed is posting how great their lives are, and, second, how many of those great lives are carefully curated for public consumption? When you are doing life with other people, yes, you share the joys and moments for celebration, but you likely also share the hard times that don't make it to social media. It really helps to know other people experience the same sorts of disappointment and pain that you do. [0] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/reading-ourselves-to-death https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/reading-ourselve... (might be paywalled)
weatherlite 4y ago
Thought experiment - let's say you are the poorest person in your neighborhood. Would talking to your neighbors daily about their salaries really make you feel better? I mean them having money, even if more than you is a good thing according to you what you said.
- maximus-decimus 4y ago
  Yes because it lets me know I can probably make more money?
  - krnlpnc 4y ago
    And helps build a personal network that could possibly help
- id 4y ago
  Yes, because if they made less money, it wouldn't help me at all (it could even hurt me because then they have nothing to share). In difficult personal situations, it has often helped me to know that at least others have it better.
  - DSingularity 4y ago
    if only things were so ideal that we all could all process things with such detachment.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    > Yes, because if they made less money, it wouldn't help me at all Let's continue this thought experiment - say with a flick of my fingers I made everyone in the world have half the money they have now - but I leave you with the same amount. So you are basically 2X richer than you were before. You say this doesn't help you at all - I think it actually increases your chances of finding housing, finding a mate, getting healthcare etc. Your material well being is established relative to others. If we expand the neighborhood example further - to city or country, it is obvious why the amount others have relative to you matters. In a world of infinite resources envy doesn't make sense, but in our world resources are limited.
JeremyNT 4y ago
I don't think this is incompatible. While you may feel happy for them, seeing the upper bounds on "the good life" could also subtly impact your own expectations and the way you think of yourself. This doesn't even need to be an effect you can detect, moment to moment, but more of a subconscious push to "want more" from life due to observing what other people are doing.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> it makes me feel... good? it doesn't in general. and that "good feeling" is mostly a lie, something we tell ourselves, because of our education, if our education was not biased by some made-up belief, we should feel nothing, not good, not bad, because we should not care about it. What other people do with their lives - in reality - has no impact on our life at all. But we were all thought to poject. Unfortunately people mostly project their frustrations on others. The only way to actually feel good about something that people share, it's to share it, like in person, in real life, not passively receive it on a screen. If watching a screen full of "good news" would actually improve people's mood, it would be recommended by WHO like with vaccines.
- id 4y ago
  >that "good feeling" is mostly a lie I meant good as in "hey, that's great for them", not as in "I'm so happy I can't stop smiling". >because we should not care about it If people truly didn't care, they wouldn't go on social media or read the news.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > I meant good as in "hey, that's great for them" yeah, that's part of education, it's not really what we should feel, because we don't know! Social media are just suspension of disbelief for the masses, we are looking through the keyhole, it should be obvious that what we're looking at it's a fabrication and nothing is real. It's like those truth-vs-reality posts about social media pictures. It's so obvious when you think about it for a moment: we don't believe that the ice cream in the ADs is actually THAT good, why we should believe that self promotional material on social media it's any better? https://www.demilked.com/instagram-online-picture-lies-truth-funny-video-ho-anh-duc-vietnam/ https://www.demilked.com/instagram-online-picture-lies-truth... https://www.boredpanda.com/instagram-vs-reality-truth-behind-pictures/ https://www.boredpanda.com/instagram-vs-reality-truth-behind... > If people truly didn't care, they wouldn't go on social media or read the news. as I've said before. They should not care, but if they don't, they're out of the game. And it hurts to them more than feeling bad. People have been thaught that if you're not getting any attention, you're nothing.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 4y ago
> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? This sounds like a misunderstanding. Being happy for friends (real friends not "500 Facebook friends" friends) is not mutually exclusive with these news invoking bad feelings inside you (shame, feeling of inadequacy etc.)
- id 4y ago
  It's not a misunderstanding. I'm also happy for complete strangers. Jeff Bezos is enjoying his Amazon money? Great for him. Also, I can't relate to feelings of shame or inadequacy because someone has something good happening to them. If anything, it motivates me to achieve the same.
  - 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 4y ago
    I'm not doubting your ability to do that and I'm not saying that negative feelings come inherently with these kind of news. But surely you can see that these reactions can be pretty common for many people especially if they aren't happy with their own situations, and that those people can still feel happy when good things happen to others. What I'm claiming is that a negative reaction (in terms of comparison) in this way and feeling happy for others are independent of each other.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Everybody sees/processes things differently.
  - Teever 4y ago
    To be clear here, what you're saying is that the feelings that others are describing are totally alien to you? Like you can't understand that humans act this way in these situations? I don't believe you.
    - id 4y ago
      I can understand, but I can't relate. I simply never had these feelings of envy, or it was too long ago to remember.
xkbarkar 4y ago
My humble opinion. I am happy and content, log on to facebook and see posting like this. Something something…. Dastart Putin. Dead people because you didnt wear a mask. Dead children ( Syria a few years ago, Ukraine now ). Something antivaxxer. Something texas abortion law. Someone parked like an idiot. My childrens amazing <insert brag here>. Some snyde humour picture, usually something about a republican. Posted by a non US person to a feed full of europeans. And it goes on. Facebook makes me want to vomit sometimes.
ac2022 4y ago
I think this depends on persons internal happiness. Happy people feel happier and sad people get sadder. This is based on my own experiences. In my 20s, I was as happy as one can be. I posted a lot on social media and enjoyed posts of my friends. Loved food posts cause that gave me new resturants to try out. Vacation pictures, I couldn't afford a nice vacation but vacationed via those pictures. Asked friends to post more pictures. Friend got a job, it meant time for a party. Now I am not as happy as I used to be. Now I do get annoyed with food and vacation photos. Feel jealous when friends are promoted. I rarely go on social media but when I do I immediately feel bad about myself. Maybe I am just getting old. Oh and yes when I was on Facebook, no one posted about politics. In fact, I remember reading my first few political posts of my friends and thinking whats wrong with them.
- sharadov 4y ago
  You said it - your internal state is reflected when you look at social media.
NoPicklez 4y ago
I think it's normal to be happy for others. But that doesn't mean it doesn't leave us performing a little introspection with regards to our own lives. Of which we think, why aren't I losing weight? Why aren't I getting married yet? Hmm why haven't I been able to go on a vacation yet? Oh because I might not be overly happy in my job, but I just saw my friend start what they think is their dream career. You can be left questioning our own place when you are constantly being shown the highlights of others lives.

by id 4y ago

coldtea 4y ago

>If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? As if regular people don't compare themselves with others and just enjoy the success of everybody, without considering if they are falling behind or not?

id 4y ago
You can compare yourself and enjoy the success of someone else.
- coldtea 4y ago
  In limited capacity, in regular life, yes. In social media, the constant highlights of the successes of other people makes you miserable for yourself, whether you feel happy for others too or not. Besides an experience many can verify, it's also quite well studied, including in the linked article.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    > In social media, the constant highlights of the successes of other people makes you miserable for yourself That might be how it makes you (and others) feel, but that doesn't mean everyone feels that way. There are people on this thread trying to say that it doesn't make them feel that way, but they keep being dismissed. The studies don't say EVERYONE feels that way, so to act like they are WRONG about how they feel is overly dismissive.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
The healthy spin on that is seeing possibilities for making progress towards one's own goals. Someone losing weight or getting fit/getting a new cert, etc makes me think "I can do that!"

eafkuor 4y ago

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate. If this would be your genuine reaction, congratulations. You belong to the 0.001% of the population that would feel this way.

laputan_machine 4y ago
If a friend gets a great job or starts to live a healthy life you don't feel great for them? I don't believe that puts me in the minority of people, not a chance.
- bennyp101 4y ago
  An actual friend then sure, but most people I know have like 500+ “friends” so I think people are less likely to have that reaction to everyone in the timeline.
  - laputan_machine 4y ago
    Oh I see yeah we're couched in the language of FB. I meant real friends, I noped out of most social media (ex. HN) in 2017. I don't miss it!
    - bennyp101 4y ago
      Same (apart from a fake FB profile so I know what's happening in the local village groups). I never really had a problem with FB, just the constant cringy posts made me leave! But dumping Twitter a couple of years ago was the best thing I ever did - it was just making me angry every time I started browsing it!
- mojzu 4y ago
  Personally I'm happy when good things are happening for family, friends and other people, but depending on my mood it can also trigger feelings of FOMO/anxiety (why isn't that happening for me, what am I missing, etc.). My guess is depending on the person and their current state that falling into a pattern of focussing on the latter rather then the former is easier when using social media. Which can then be a bit of a vicious cycle because cutting yourself off from social media may also mean you miss events that you could have participated in

lrvick 4y ago

Having actually thrown away my phone, and lived in the woods, I can say I recommend the former as a fantastic mental health improvement. Living in the woods, not so much.

orzig 4y ago
My very favorite part of HN is when someone is like “I’m actually an experienced XYZer, here’s the inside scoop” usually for a niche industry, now for niche lifestyles. Thanks for the data point! Can you say more about the experience? Where did you end up?
guerrilla 4y ago
What's wrong with the woods?
- RajT88 4y ago
  Mosquitos. Poison ivy. If he is growing his own food - a variety of animals will be eating the veggies. Rabbits, cabbage moths (evil bastards), groundhogs, raccoons...
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Cabbage moths are the worst... The other things seem pretty avoidable though...
    - RajT88 4y ago
      I guess the other animals there's strategies to deal with them. Poison ivy sneaks up on you. Young plants can be hard to see, and if you're like me, you won't know you've been exposed for a few days... And then it's ALL OVER.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> Makes we wanna throw away my phone and live in the woods What I tried to aim for in Digital Vegan 1[] is to get people thinking about tech as a healthy balance. It is actually rather common to have these extreme swings, all or nothing, total technological connection or living off berries in a woodland shack. It's called splitting in psychology, and the conditions around technology are geared to maximise it. That's partly because it is so aggressive, in it's marketing, and peer pressure, in it's network effects created by deliberate lack of interoperability, by the way it is forced upon people. Young people are constantly bullied into over-connection by the idea they will be "left behind", that they will "miss out", and that a total cybernetic society of "ubiquitous" technology is "inevitable". All a total crock of shit of course. Nobody wants that except a few silicon valley pushers. But if you are immersed in that toxic narrative, which comes through the medium itself, it's hard for anyone to exercise rational choice, self-control and use technology in a moderate, healthy way. So to me it makes sense to define "hacker" as someone who has mastery over technology. A master is not dominated by their own creations and desires. Part of mastery is choosing exactly how much, and what type of technology to use, and not allowing other people to foist that upon you. Real hackers make technological choices that may marginalise them, instead of just following the crowd. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net

funcDropShadow 4y ago
> So to me it makes sense to define "hacker" as someone who has mastery over technology. A master is not dominated by their own creations and desires. Part of mastery is choosing exactly how much, and what type of technology to use, and not allowing other people to foist that upon you. I like that definition and they way you argue. But don't forget that i.e. Meta and all other social networks are paying hords of hackers to screw with your emotions. I.e. you have a really capable opponent. Why do I claim that social networks and other pay hackers to screw with our emotions? Actually I am convinced they don't care at all about the emotions of their users. They only care about their attention. Since, that is what is being sold to advertisers. Therefore, they do anything to prohibit users from staying in control of their social media use. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to use social media responsibly and healthy, but it is not easy.

bmj 4y ago

There's an essay[0] in the latest edition of The New Atlantis titled "Reading Ourselves to Death," and the premise is that our brains are really not currently wired in such a way to take in so much information via text. I think you are correct -- that we should feel good about a friend's vacation, or ideal job. However, in real life, we are exposed to those things in a much more limited way: you meet a friend for coffee and they show you photos of their trip, or a good friend calls to share their joy at the new job. Yes, absolutely, emotionally healthy humans should feel good about that. However, social media skews the equation, heavily. First, EVERYONE on your feed is posting how great their lives are, and, second, how many of those great lives are carefully curated for public consumption? When you are doing life with other people, yes, you share the joys and moments for celebration, but you likely also share the hard times that don't make it to social media. It really helps to know other people experience the same sorts of disappointment and pain that you do. [0] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/reading-ourselves-to-death https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/reading-ourselve... (might be paywalled)

weatherlite 4y ago

Thought experiment - let's say you are the poorest person in your neighborhood. Would talking to your neighbors daily about their salaries really make you feel better? I mean them having money, even if more than you is a good thing according to you what you said.

maximus-decimus 4y ago
Yes because it lets me know I can probably make more money?
- krnlpnc 4y ago
  And helps build a personal network that could possibly help
id 4y ago
Yes, because if they made less money, it wouldn't help me at all (it could even hurt me because then they have nothing to share). In difficult personal situations, it has often helped me to know that at least others have it better.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  if only things were so ideal that we all could all process things with such detachment.
- weatherlite 4y ago
  > Yes, because if they made less money, it wouldn't help me at all Let's continue this thought experiment - say with a flick of my fingers I made everyone in the world have half the money they have now - but I leave you with the same amount. So you are basically 2X richer than you were before. You say this doesn't help you at all - I think it actually increases your chances of finding housing, finding a mate, getting healthcare etc. Your material well being is established relative to others. If we expand the neighborhood example further - to city or country, it is obvious why the amount others have relative to you matters. In a world of infinite resources envy doesn't make sense, but in our world resources are limited.

JeremyNT 4y ago

I don't think this is incompatible. While you may feel happy for them, seeing the upper bounds on "the good life" could also subtly impact your own expectations and the way you think of yourself. This doesn't even need to be an effect you can detect, moment to moment, but more of a subconscious push to "want more" from life due to observing what other people are doing.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> it makes me feel... good? it doesn't in general. and that "good feeling" is mostly a lie, something we tell ourselves, because of our education, if our education was not biased by some made-up belief, we should feel nothing, not good, not bad, because we should not care about it. What other people do with their lives - in reality - has no impact on our life at all. But we were all thought to poject. Unfortunately people mostly project their frustrations on others. The only way to actually feel good about something that people share, it's to share it, like in person, in real life, not passively receive it on a screen. If watching a screen full of "good news" would actually improve people's mood, it would be recommended by WHO like with vaccines.

id 4y ago
>that "good feeling" is mostly a lie I meant good as in "hey, that's great for them", not as in "I'm so happy I can't stop smiling". >because we should not care about it If people truly didn't care, they wouldn't go on social media or read the news.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > I meant good as in "hey, that's great for them" yeah, that's part of education, it's not really what we should feel, because we don't know! Social media are just suspension of disbelief for the masses, we are looking through the keyhole, it should be obvious that what we're looking at it's a fabrication and nothing is real. It's like those truth-vs-reality posts about social media pictures. It's so obvious when you think about it for a moment: we don't believe that the ice cream in the ADs is actually THAT good, why we should believe that self promotional material on social media it's any better? https://www.demilked.com/instagram-online-picture-lies-truth-funny-video-ho-anh-duc-vietnam/ https://www.demilked.com/instagram-online-picture-lies-truth... https://www.boredpanda.com/instagram-vs-reality-truth-behind-pictures/ https://www.boredpanda.com/instagram-vs-reality-truth-behind... > If people truly didn't care, they wouldn't go on social media or read the news. as I've said before. They should not care, but if they don't, they're out of the game. And it hurts to them more than feeling bad. People have been thaught that if you're not getting any attention, you're nothing.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 4y ago

> If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? This sounds like a misunderstanding. Being happy for friends (real friends not "500 Facebook friends" friends) is not mutually exclusive with these news invoking bad feelings inside you (shame, feeling of inadequacy etc.)

id 4y ago
It's not a misunderstanding. I'm also happy for complete strangers. Jeff Bezos is enjoying his Amazon money? Great for him. Also, I can't relate to feelings of shame or inadequacy because someone has something good happening to them. If anything, it motivates me to achieve the same.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 4y ago
  I'm not doubting your ability to do that and I'm not saying that negative feelings come inherently with these kind of news. But surely you can see that these reactions can be pretty common for many people especially if they aren't happy with their own situations, and that those people can still feel happy when good things happen to others. What I'm claiming is that a negative reaction (in terms of comparison) in this way and feeling happy for others are independent of each other.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Everybody sees/processes things differently.
- Teever 4y ago
  To be clear here, what you're saying is that the feelings that others are describing are totally alien to you? Like you can't understand that humans act this way in these situations? I don't believe you.
  - id 4y ago
    I can understand, but I can't relate. I simply never had these feelings of envy, or it was too long ago to remember.

xkbarkar 4y ago

My humble opinion. I am happy and content, log on to facebook and see posting like this. Something something…. Dastart Putin. Dead people because you didnt wear a mask. Dead children ( Syria a few years ago, Ukraine now ). Something antivaxxer. Something texas abortion law. Someone parked like an idiot. My childrens amazing <insert brag here>. Some snyde humour picture, usually something about a republican. Posted by a non US person to a feed full of europeans. And it goes on. Facebook makes me want to vomit sometimes.

ac2022 4y ago

I think this depends on persons internal happiness. Happy people feel happier and sad people get sadder. This is based on my own experiences. In my 20s, I was as happy as one can be. I posted a lot on social media and enjoyed posts of my friends. Loved food posts cause that gave me new resturants to try out. Vacation pictures, I couldn't afford a nice vacation but vacationed via those pictures. Asked friends to post more pictures. Friend got a job, it meant time for a party. Now I am not as happy as I used to be. Now I do get annoyed with food and vacation photos. Feel jealous when friends are promoted. I rarely go on social media but when I do I immediately feel bad about myself. Maybe I am just getting old. Oh and yes when I was on Facebook, no one posted about politics. In fact, I remember reading my first few political posts of my friends and thinking whats wrong with them.

sharadov 4y ago
You said it - your internal state is reflected when you look at social media.

NoPicklez 4y ago

I think it's normal to be happy for others. But that doesn't mean it doesn't leave us performing a little introspection with regards to our own lives. Of which we think, why aren't I losing weight? Why aren't I getting married yet? Hmm why haven't I been able to go on a vacation yet? Oh because I might not be overly happy in my job, but I just saw my friend start what they think is their dream career. You can be left questioning our own place when you are constantly being shown the highlights of others lives.