WHEN Facebook was founded
in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect
friends. Some 800 million users later, the social network has taken over
most aspects of our lives, and is fast becoming the dominant
communication platform of the future.
But this new world of ubiquitous connectivity has a dark side: Facebook is making us miserable.
In co-writing my book Passion & Purpose,
I monitored how Facebook impacted the lives of hundreds of young
businesspeople. As I went about my research, it became clear that behind
all the liking, sharing and posting, there were strong hints of
jealousy, anxiety and, in one case, depression. I discovered disturbing
by-products of Facebook’s rapid ascension—three ways in which the
social-media giant is fundamentally altering our sense of well-being in
both our personal and professional lives:
1. FACEBOOK CREATES A DEN OF COMPARISON.
Since our Facebook profiles are self-curated, we have a strong bias
toward sharing the positive and avoiding the negative. This creates an
online culture of competition and comparison. And comparing ourselves to
others is a key driver of unhappiness. As we judge the entirety of our
lives against the top 1 percent of our friends’ lives, we’re setting
impossible standards for ourselves, which can make us miserable.
2. FACEBOOK FRAGMENTS OUR TIME.
Facebook’s ‘’horizontal’’ strategy encourages users to log in more
frequently, no matter where they are, by using different devices. My
interviewees regularly accessed Facebook from their office computer and
while out shopping through their smartphones. The problem with this
constant “tabbing’’ between real-life tasks and Facebook is what
economists and psychologists call “switching costs,’’ the loss in
productivity associated with changing from one task to another. And all
this switching can affect the quality of our work.
3. FACEBOOK IMPACTS OUR RELATIONSHIPS. Gone
are the days where Facebook merely complemented our real-life
relationships. Now, it’s actually winning share of our core, offline
interactions. As Facebook adds new features such as video chat, it’s
fast becoming a viable substitute for business meetings, networking—even
family get-togethers.
Quitting
Facebook altogether may be unrealistic, but we can still take measures
to alter our usage patterns and strengthen our real-world relationships.
Some useful tactics include blocking out designated time for Facebook;
selectively trimming Facebook friends lists; and investing more time in
building offline relationships. The particularly courageous may choose
to delete Facebook from their smartphones and iPads, and log off the
platform entirely for long stretches of time.
Daniel Gulati is a technology entrepreneur based in New York. He is a coauthor of the new book Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders.
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