Let's compare 2 different facebook pages:
Page 1: I have 2,000 friends. I was tagged in 20 pictures just this weekend. I got 5 event invitations this weekend alone. My photo albums are full of hot chicks. I just posted pics of my weekend out at the Vineyards wine tasting with 15 friends. Man, my life is so good!
Page 2: I've been on facebook for 2 years and I have 20 friends. I never go anywhere for anyone to tag me in a photo. I never get invited anywhere. My photo albums are of me and my golden retriever, Buck. My life is pretty lame.
Who would you rather be?
Facebook, in some aspects, has become a giant popularity contest. At least when you were picked last in gym class, the class would end and you could forget the embarrassing moment for a little while. With facebook constantly sending updates to computers and smart phones, people are constantly comparing their lives to the people they know.
According to a new report on social media and children released by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) co author Gwenn O'Keeffe said "It (facebook) can be more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, because Facebook provides a skewed view of what's really going on." Online, there's no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context." And let me add to that, there's no way to know truth from exaggerated truth and even lies.
Dr. Megan Moreno, a University of Wisconsin Adolescent Medicine Specialist who has studied online social networking among college students, said using Facebook can enhance feelings of social connectedness among well-adjusted kids, and have the opposite effect on those prone to depression. (msnbc.com) So you wonder, is facebook a catalyst for depression or does it just add to a person who is already depressed?
People are constantly being bombarded with billboards, commercials, tv shows, magazine ads, movies, and a million other media outlets of airbrushed, perfect people and their apparent perfect lives and striving for that when in reality it's mostly fake. Now facebook is adding to that on an exponential level, making people who are faithful followers of the website put themselves at constant competition with themselves to try to live up to the lives they see going on in facebook. The problem is, most of the time people only post the good things in their lives making their life seem like a fairy tale when that's not the case.
An article on uwire.com reported on Alex Jordan, a PHD. student at Stanford University, conducted a study monitoring students involvements on facebook and their reactions to their friends posts.
In Jordan’s first study, he and his research team surveyed 80 freshmen asking them to report whether they or their peers had recently experienced any positive or negative emotional events after looking at Facebook updates. When the students responded, a large majority of them overestimated how good their friends’ lives are and how much fun they appear to have while underestimating the amount of negative experiences their friends were actually having.
The team conducted a second and third study surveying different age students at Stanford, and the same results of overestimating their friends’ “perfect” lives appeared time and time again.
Basically, it seems to boil down to an imaginary façade Facebook places on users, causing them to equate what they perceive to be the perfect lives of their friends in comparison to the perception of their own lives.
Now it's not that facebook is all bad. These are ideas and opinions of just some people. According to and article on webmd.com, facebook can actually boost peoples self-esteem. The article brings up a few good points, such as if you're feeling a little blue, just go on you're facebook page where it is slightly exaggerated to make you sound really cool and all-together to give yourself a little boost. I guess that makes sense.
Researchers from Cornell University stated that, Facebook lets you put your best face forward, allowing you to filter out anything that will make you feel bad. Facebook can depict you in a very positive light, without blemishes a mirror might reflect, real or imagined.
So I guess if you take into account that you're page may be exaggerated to make you look better, than you have to remember that when viewing other people's pages. You have to remember that what you are viewing may not be the complete or total truth. Just like your page.