By Christine Schoenwald
I’m addicted to Facebook. I don’t just go on there once or twice a day — I’m constantly on there. Although I’m on Facebook a lot, there are many things I don’t see on my feed, some things (and people) that I’ve blocked and other content that the Facebook algorithm has randomly decided not to show me.
Still, there’s so much on Facebook that I don’t want to see and that I wish I’d never seen. If I never see another over-the-top conservative rant from that nice boy from second grade again, or the endless pictures and videos of my middle school friend’s son learning how to potty, I’d be forever grateful.
But even more than the annoying and sometimes just plain gross shares are the amazing successes and overwhelming joys people share, which cause me to focus on what other people have. I find myself comparing my life to those lives of others, and my life (though a wonderful life) falls short.
Of course, I could unfriend, unfollow or block the spectacular over-sharers, but then who would I have to promote all my crap … I mean, cool activities and milestones to?
I’m just not sure I have the determination I need to take myself off Facebook, though almost everything suggests that if I did, I’d be most definitely better off and happier.
Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute said, “Facebook is a constant bombardment of everyone else’s great news, but many of us look out of the window and see grey skies and rain, especially in Denmark.â€
In order to really look at how social networks, specifically Facebook, influence our sense of well-being, the Happiness Research Institute conducted a study of 1,095 Facebook users, 94 percent of whom visit Facebook as part of their daily routine, 86 percent who browse their Facebook news feed often or very often, and 78 percent who use Facebook 30 minutes or more per day.
The researchers polled the participants on their Facebook usages, then divided them into two groups for a week-long experiment. One group (the control group) was told to continue using Facebook the way they would normally, and the other group (treatment group) was asked to not use Facebook for an entire week.
At the end of the seven days, 88 percent of the treatment group (those who gave up Facebook) reported feeling happy compared to the 81 percent of the control group. The treatment group also reported feeling more enthusiastic, more decisive, wasted less time, and felt as if they enjoyed life more.
The control group (still connected to Facebook) were 55 percent more likely to feel stressed, experience trouble concentrating, and described feelings of loneliness. Researchers came to the conclusion that those negative feelings were most likely caused by Facebook envy.
The study stated that 5 out of 10 people envy the amazing experiences of others posted on Facebook, 1 out of 3 people envy how happy other people seem on Facebook, and 4 out of 10 envy the apparent success of others on Facebook.
“The main takeaway from this study is awareness of the negative aspects that social comparisons have, and how we should be mindful of how Facebook and social media affect how we evaluate our lives,†Wiking said.
Instead of depending on Facebook to show me only the good or the annoying, I should try to spend less time on it and focus on making my own happiness.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
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Teens and Technology†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “Fully 95% of teens are online, a percentage that has been consistent since 2006. Yet, the nature of teens’ internet use has transformed dramatically during that time … Teens are just as likely to have a cell phone as they are to have a desktop or laptop computer. And increasingly these phones are affording teens always-on, mobile access to the internet — in some cases, serving as their primary point of access.â€
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Preschoolers Can Learn Great Things From TV†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Huffington Post (to read the actual study, visit Pediatrics — subscription required)
Gist: “New research out today by Dr Christakis finds that putting our time and energy into working to improve what our children watch, not just how much they watch, can have a positive impact on their behavior — even for children as young as 3 years of age.â€
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Media and Violence: An Analysis of Current Research †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Common Sense Media
Gist: “While longitudinal research does allow us to speak in terms of a ‘causal’ relationship, it is probably more accurate and useful to think about media violence as a ‘risk factor’ rather than a ’cause’ of violence — one variable among many that increases the risk of violent behavior among some children.â€
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Source: Reuters (to read the actual study, visit JAMA Pediatrics — log-in required)
Gist: “[R]esearchers said the new study backs up earlier findings showing too much screen time and not enough exercise may be separate issues that parents and schools need to address independently.â€
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How Families Interact on Facebook †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Facebook
Gist: “We investigated anonymized and automatically processed posts and comments by people self-identified as parents and children to understand how conversation patterns with each other might be a bit different from those with their other friends.â€
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Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “Most parents of teenagers are concerned about what their teenage children do online and how their behavior could be monitored by others. Some parents are taking steps to observe, discuss, and check up on their children’s digital footprints.â€
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Public Supports Expanded Internet Safety Requirements to Protect Kids†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health
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The Online Generation Gap†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Family Online Safety Institute
Gist: “These surveys indicate that teens’ concerns about their online safety parallel parents’ concerns more closely than parents realize and that many teens are taking steps to protect their privacy and personal information. Nonetheless, teens suggest that parents are not as informed about what their teens do online as parents think they are, and some teens are taking risks by providing personal information to strangers online.â€
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Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View From The Classroom†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Common Sense Media
Gist: “America’s teachers — whether they are long-time classroom veterans or young, tech-savvy ones, at wealthy schools or low-income schools, public or private, elementary or high school — surface relatively consistent concerns: Students are having issues with their attention span, writing, and face-to-face communication, and, in the experience of teachers, children’s media use is contributing to the problem. On the plus side, teachers find that young people’s facility with media is helping them find information quickly and multitask more effectively.â€
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How Teens Do Research in the Digital World†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “Three-quarters of AP [Advanced Placement] and NWP [National Writing Project] teachers say that the internet and digital search tools have had a ‘mostly positive’ impact on their students’ research habits, but 87% say these technologies are creating an ‘easily distracted generation with short attention spans’ and 64% say today’s digital technologies ‘do more to distract students than to help them academically.’â€
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Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Common Sense Media
Gist: “Three out of four teens have social networking sites, and half of all teens are on their sites on a daily basis. But despite our concerns about social media, in the vast majority of cases, these media do not appear to be causing great tumult in teenagers’ lives.â€
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Teens, Smartphones and Texting: Texting Volume Is Up While Frequency of Voice Calling Is Down†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “The volume of texting among teens has risen from 50 texts a day in 2009 to 60 texts for the median teen text user. The frequency of teens’ phone chatter with friends – on cell phones and landlines – has fallen. But the heaviest texters are also the heaviest talkers with their friends.â€
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Impact of an Active Video Game on Healthy Children’s Physical Activity†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pediatrics
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Teens, Kindness And Cruelty on Social Network Sites: How American Teens Navigate the New World of “Digital Citizenshipâ€â€ width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “As social media use has become pervasive in the lives of American teens, a new study finds that 69% of the teenagers who use social networking sites say their peers are mostly kind to one another on such sites. Still, 88% of these teens say they have witnessed people being mean and cruel to another person on the sites, and 15% report that they have been the target of mean or cruel behavior on social network sites.â€
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Preschool-Aged Children’s Television Viewing in Child Care Settings †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pediatrics
Gist: “We found that children in as many as 70% of home-based child care settings and 36% of center-based child care settings watch television daily. More importantly, when television is viewed at all, infants and children spend 2 to 3 hours watching in home-based programs and ~1.5 hours watching in center-based programs.â€
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Media Use by Children Younger Than 2 Years†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pediatrics
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Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Common Sense Media
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Cell Phone Study ‘Misleading’: Children May Still Be At Increased Cancer Risk, Experts Say †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: The Huffington Post
Gist: “[E]xperts have some serious concerns regarding the methods and conclusions of the first study evaluating the connection between cell phone radiation and brain cancer in children and teens. Not only was the study flawed, they note, but it was also financially supported by the cell phone industry.â€
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Children’s Screen Viewing Is Related to Psychological Difficulties Irrespective of Physical Activity †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pediatrics
Gist: “This study found that greater television and computer use was related to greater psychological dif?culties, independent of gender, age, level of deprivation, pubertal status, and objectively measured physical activity and
sedentary time.â€
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Television and Video Game Exposure and the Development of Attention Problems†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pediatrics
Gist: “Viewing television and playing video games each are associated with increased subsequent attention problems in childhood. It seems that a similar association among television, video games, and attention problems exists in late adolescence and early adulthood.â€
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Teens, Cell Phones and Texting: Text Messaging Becomes Centerpiece Communication †width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Pew Research Center
Gist: “Fully two-thirds of teen texters say they are more likely to use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them to them by cell phone.â€
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Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds†width=â€52? height=â€52?/
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
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