STUDY: Facebook research finds mo friends mo problems
Yeah we know, we know, we’re a bit sick of the endless Facebook research that proves absolutely nothing too. But this one is quite interesting. And by interesting we mean you should read it before you get even more social media overload and your head explodes.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh Business School have found that the more friends you have on Facebook from different areas of your life, the more stressed out you get about pretty much everything.
The study took an in-depth look at the way 300 people use the social network and found that many of us have seven distinct social circles online, including friends known offline, extended family, colleagues, siblings, friends of friends, exes and current squeezes.
However the stress comes when users post content that they think is acceptable to one group of friends and not another, with many choosing to share statuses, links and photos regardless but then worry they’ve done the wrong thing or others just don’t share as much anymore because they feel like they’re walking on eggshells.
Ben Marder, one of the researchers from the University of Edinburgh behind the report, said:
“Facebook used to be like a great party for all your friends where you can dance, drink, and flirt. But now with your mum, dad, and boss there, the party becomes an anxious event full of potential social landmines.”
Of course none of this is really that surprising, but does prove why Facebook lists and groups exist and why Google+ created those silly bouncing circles. We imagine it’ll be an increasing challenge in the future for various platforms to make sharing with different social groups even easier and more intuitive. Facebook has clearly added a lot of new features for that exact purpose, by automatically grouping people together and creating a new acquaintances list recently too, but for some people it still seems a bit forced and they’ll choose to not update rather than faff around with lists and things.
[Via All Facebook]
