Slashdot Mirror
Number of Facebook Friends Linked To Anxiety
Hugh Pickens writes writes "WebProNews reports that according to a new survey, the more Facebook friends you have, the more likely you are to feel stressed out by the site. 'The results threw up a number of paradoxes,' says Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. 'For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits.' Causes of stress included deleting unwanted contacts, the pressure to be entertaining, and having to use appropriate etiquette for different types of friends. 'Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good.'"
"Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good"
Just like slashdot. Been here for years and I'm still waiting ;)
Cheers, Chris
but I really don't see the value in studying how people use facebook.
Its an experiment in behavioral psychology. One where the rat gets a shock no matter which lever it presses.
Have gnu, will travel.
This cat. Is it alive or dead?
Yes.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
What does it say when I have only 24 facebook friends and I'm still stressed out by all the "noise".
That you are masochistic enough to stay in a situation nobody forced you in?
I have rarely and almost never observed actual masochism. What I usually witness instead is a mentality that thinks like this: "if I jump through the hoops and pay the price then maybe I'll get something I want." The difference of course is that, by definition, a real masochist isn't doing it out of hope for some reward or the achievement of some goal.
For as long as Facebook stories have appeared on Slashdot, I have said that the desire for the attention and evaluation of casual strangers is unhealthy. It's one of those "to fill a void" type of desires that is not natural; it's a response to the kind of sense of alienation of which Erich Fromm gives such a great description. It's one of those things where one must be careful to retain one's sense and objectivity, otherwise it is easy to mistake the increasing status of "common" with any sense of "normal". When something is being done not because it is voluntary and considered a joy, but out of some sense of desperation and unhealthy desire for attention, of course stress and anxiety is going to scale up with increasing involvement.
How could it work any other way? It's not a matter of whether anyone is forcing anyone -- clearly that is not the case. It's a matter of well-intentioned but thoroughly misguided compensatory problem-solving.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein