Feeling depressed? Feeling like you have got nothing to do and your friends are having all the fun? Probably facebook is the culprit.
1 out of every 7 online minutes is spent of facebook. From facebook statistics (2011 data), we know that over 700 billion minutes are devoted to facebook every month by 250 million daily users of facebook. If we do the math, we will find that every active user spends 1.5 hours on average a day on facebook. That’s 6% of the day spent on facebook! Moreover there are growing number of teens who live a virtual life. No place to play, no security, pollution and growing number of people in cities push young people to stay more time at home and devote more time on internet.
Facebook does not reflect true life. It reflects what people choose to share on facebook. By nature, human beings want to share only the good-side of their life. Because friends share only the ups in their lives and avoid the downs from sharing, if you follow someone on facebook you will perceive him/her to have a near-perfect life. With less physical interaction and more virtual interaction, you might have the illusion that their lives are better than yours. For example, when someone spends a bored Friday night at home checking into facebook and find friends having a blast or uploading photos (where they always seem having the time of their life) or getting more likes and comments, s/he is supposed to feel depressed. But that’s only one side of the story. Actually their lives aren’t more fun/perfect, rather they are more comfortable sharing personal stuff on facebook. Further study shows that individuals underestimate their lives’ quality on comparing with friends on facebook.
Further reason of depression for some is the deep down guilty feeling of wasting a lot of time doing nothing productive.
I personally belief face book is only good as long as you use it for what it is, a tool for communication and don’t dig deep into the homepage. It’s ok to scroll 8-10 updates but when you start going deeper (which I unconsciously do) you are struck with a stream of updates on how people around you and in many cases people you barely know are having superior social and professional life than you.
That’s why we should rethink how we should spend our time. Irony is facebook is everywhere. Even in the wiki-how page of how to avoid face book, I found a face book.
The hunter-gatherer forefather of ours didn’t have to think about 24/7 exposure and status updates. So next time you are having the familiar lost sensation after browsing facebook, press CTRL+W. Watch a movie or better read a book. Turn off your machine. Go out for a walk/dance/swimming/table-tennis games. Avoid taking cameras and breaking down everything into facebook posts or youtube videos. Get closer to green earth and feel the flow of air on your face, before it fails.
1 out of every 7 online minutes is spent of facebook. From facebook statistics (2011 data), we know that over 700 billion minutes are devoted to facebook every month by 250 million daily users of facebook. If we do the math, we will find that every active user spends 1.5 hours on average a day on facebook. That’s 6% of the day spent on facebook! Moreover there are growing number of teens who live a virtual life. No place to play, no security, pollution and growing number of people in cities push young people to stay more time at home and devote more time on internet.
Facebook does not reflect true life. It reflects what people choose to share on facebook. By nature, human beings want to share only the good-side of their life. Because friends share only the ups in their lives and avoid the downs from sharing, if you follow someone on facebook you will perceive him/her to have a near-perfect life. With less physical interaction and more virtual interaction, you might have the illusion that their lives are better than yours. For example, when someone spends a bored Friday night at home checking into facebook and find friends having a blast or uploading photos (where they always seem having the time of their life) or getting more likes and comments, s/he is supposed to feel depressed. But that’s only one side of the story. Actually their lives aren’t more fun/perfect, rather they are more comfortable sharing personal stuff on facebook. Further study shows that individuals underestimate their lives’ quality on comparing with friends on facebook.
Further reason of depression for some is the deep down guilty feeling of wasting a lot of time doing nothing productive.
I personally belief face book is only good as long as you use it for what it is, a tool for communication and don’t dig deep into the homepage. It’s ok to scroll 8-10 updates but when you start going deeper (which I unconsciously do) you are struck with a stream of updates on how people around you and in many cases people you barely know are having superior social and professional life than you.
That’s why we should rethink how we should spend our time. Irony is facebook is everywhere. Even in the wiki-how page of how to avoid face book, I found a face book.
The hunter-gatherer forefather of ours didn’t have to think about 24/7 exposure and status updates. So next time you are having the familiar lost sensation after browsing facebook, press CTRL+W. Watch a movie or better read a book. Turn off your machine. Go out for a walk/dance/swimming/table-tennis games. Avoid taking cameras and breaking down everything into facebook posts or youtube videos. Get closer to green earth and feel the flow of air on your face, before it fails.
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