Lonelier on Facebook?

So, I know recent studies said that most people become envious of friends after going on Facebook because they only see the highlights of their lives (happy events, vacations, social outings). I'm not sure about anyone else here but I actually feel lonelier going on FB, seeing the social lives of my friends that don't include me. I know that's just a fact of life; friends don't share everything together, but it made me feel excluded sometimes.

I took a break from FB and became happier, but in the end, I still can't cut the cord because I like to try to make plans on FB. Anyone in the same boat?

I don't see why anyone would become envious of anything related to Facebook. It's funny to me how people claim that all they see is happy events and whatnot, yet all I ever hear about is how all that people do on Facebook is complain. Contradictory or not, I still don't understand the hype surround the site. Either you use it, or you don't.

Although, I do understand what you mean. I have quite some mates from the same community but they do seem to make plans without me. Also my actual group of 'friends', or supposed so, were planning a meeting without me on a thread where I was included. Facebook does give that vibe. I also went away from facebook for a while but yeah you know, you just know that they're out there doing stuff and not including you. :/

People should be more interested in living their life instead of caring about what to post in FB. I have friends with more number of friends in their lists. They also have more updates more pictures more social life. I do NOT envy them. I prefer my solitude over having the need of showing others how social and happy I am. FB is just a page in the internet. Why should it define happiness to me? Why should it make me sad because others are happy? No, it does not seem righ to me.

Ledia said:

People should be more interested in living their life instead of caring about what to post in FB. I have friends with more number of friends in their lists. They also have more updates more pictures more social life. I do NOT envy them. I prefer my solitude over having the need of showing others how social and happy I am. FB is just a page in the internet. Why should it define happiness to me? Why should it make me sad because others are happy? No, it does not seem righ to me.

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I love this concept. It's hard though. With the people I know (and i keep my friends list down to 50 - if i don't currently associate with you and wouldn't know/approach you on the street, you don't make the cut) it's really a competition. The FIRST thing girls do when they are out at a bar/doing something cool/just looking pretty is facebook the photos. Honestly, I'm guilty of it as well (but no selfies at least.) This can lead to some cruddy feelings all around.

I have a friend who has VERY low self-esteem and will literally post around 10 self portraits a DAY. She has a ton of friends so someone ALWAYS likes or comments, and the cycle continues. She's addicted to the attention. It really makes me stop and think about what the heck we are all doing.

I eventually hid everyone and don't use it anymore. My feed never changes and I'm fine with that

Ledia said:

People should be more interested in living their life instead of caring about what to post in FB. I have friends with more number of friends in their lists. They also have more updates more pictures more social life. I do NOT envy them. I prefer my solitude over having the need of showing others how social and happy I am. FB is just a page in the internet. Why should it define happiness to me? Why should it make me sad because others are happy? No, it does not seem righ to me.

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Well said...

redraider1101 said:

I eventually hid everyone and don't use it anymore. My feed never changes and I'm fine with that

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My feed rarely changes..

FB serves one of a few purposes: Attracting attention to one's business, music band, activist org or some other group, ego gratification (attracting attention to oneself), or as an arena to vent one's political passions & flame others of positions different than one's own. I started mine to get exposure for my art. But I do deactivate the account every so often..may do that again tomorrow. The political flamefests there are irritating as hell.

I think I used Facebook more to stalk on people. Don't really care about anything else on there. Oh, but of course, to keep up to the happenings of my dear friends, who mostly use Facebook for everything. I don't really see it as anything negative, nor do I see it as anything positive. Whatever works for each individual.

ladyforsaken said:

I think I used Facebook more to stalk on people. Don't really care about anything else on there. Oh, but of course, to keep up to the happenings of my dear friends, who mostly use Facebook for everything. I don't really see it as anything negative, nor do I see it as anything positive. Whatever works for each individual.

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Nicely put. The real downside to Facebook is when it becomes an addiction. Thus my deactivating my account there at times. But addiction is what drives these days, apparently.

I'll admit I don't use my fb as much anymore as I did but even when I did, I used it in a "professional" matter one can say. I usually only talk about music, some games (like fan made games of popular game titles, not fb games which I don't play anymore), and my agendas for the week. I tend to stay away from the emotional side of my life on the bookface. One of the few times I feel lonely on the bookface is when I want to have a convo with someone on it and they're usually not in the mood to talk or they just are not there to talk.

Technology such as face book is making people feel more disconnected from others and lonelier. For one thing it's a very superficial concept to have hundreds of "friends" on your face book list when in reality not many of them are your "friends." There is no substitute for interacting with people face to face and spending time with them and the ones you are not doing this with on a regular basis are NOT your friends. They are superficial contacts in your life, acquaintances at best. People are less likely to even call people these days because they can just post something on face book.

I use face book too but with the understanding that it is not going to satisfy my need to be connected to others. You can use it like e-mail to send your friends private messages, post something fun on their wall. I use it to post pictures of places that I have been, share links that I find interesting. Living your life will make your face book page more interesting as you will have more to share with people on there but it's no substitute for calling your best friend or visiting which is better than calling and saying "I have something to tell you."

Hundreds of friends? What about those of us who use Facebook and don't have hundreds of friends? It's only turns superficial when someone sees something they want to have, and to be honest, I personally don't care about friend count. That's not even the purpose of Facebook. And what if you do know quite literally hundreds of people? Who's to say that just because someone has 350 friends, they don't know 350 people? I know quite a few people who would know more than that.

There's a limit of people one's capable of being friends with... about 150.

It's obvious... some just want to have as many friends as possible.

I don't think that's true, Felix. A random article online isn't the one to determine how many friends someone can have. You may not think it's possible, a lot of people might not think it's possible... But there's no limit to how many friends someone can know. I'm not talking about a number count on a social networking site. It was possible to know that many people before all this social media came about.

I'm goind to share a bit of my personal experience with Facebook.

In my case, seeing the happy lives of others always makes me feel deeply depressed and blue (never angry), because i can't have that, because i cannot have a single moment of happiness since several years ago, so i have been trying to avoid all that wether in my everyday life or online, and i try to focus on myself and my own life.

I realized that many of those contacts (who i never met personally), only used their accounts to show off, they "supposedly" never had problems, they always pointed how perfect and happy their lives "supposedly" are, like fairytales, with few effort and work they "supposedly" got lots of money and travel around the world, etc, yeah right and i'm the queen of England, so then i understood i was relating to the wrong people, who were mostly faking and posing, who were doing nothing good to me and nothing for me, while i barely spoke with my real best friends, who have been always there for me, but i just ignored them for a long time.

All this situation led me 2 yrs. ago to finally leave that circus that my old and useless FB account was and create a new one, but this time it would be strictly private, only for family and closest friends and i have kept my word to myself til today. There i only have 23 contacts, between relatives, the man i love, and my dearest friends, and they are not the showing-off type, they use their accounts same as me, to be in touch with their beloved ones and share special things despite distance, they are down-to-earth people with good and bad times, with problems and happy moments, with financial prosperity and crisis periods, with a pretty much average lives, not fairytales.

So now i feel way better in that aspect and more comfortable when i login in, i give the best use to this social network that i can, and most important, i spend much less time there than before. While i'm online i finally have important things to share, and things to read that really matters to me, events to attend, familiar conversations to have, because i'm living my real life outside a bit more and my friends are genuine people who also live their real lives.

I admit that my daily routine still includes several computer hours but 50% is because of my job, and the other part had to do with mp3s, watching online series or movies, reading interesting articles or ebooks, checking weather/maps/bus or plane tickets, making online purchases, and just taking a short glance at my emails and fb.

Well that's my own experience, i won't advise anyone because i'm not the best example and i don't feel ready to, only wanted to write my little contribution to this topic.

I can see how Facebook can make one feel lonelier - seeing pictures of happy couples, people posting baby pictures, going to concerts without you, etc. etc.

It's kinda like that in real life, though. I often feel lonelier when I see a happy couple at the supermarket or a young couple with a newborn or people dressed up for a night of fun. It is mostly the same.

One of the differences for me is having more access to specific peoples lives. For instance, I am attracted to this woman I work with. I rarely if ever see her at work but I added her on Facebook. I now have access to a part of her life that I didn't before - it makes it a bit more difficult since we have no relationship. If she were not my friend on Facebook, I probably wouldn't think about her as often.

I deleted my Facebook account not that long ago, but hardly ever used it in the first place. I saw that most of my friends there had more of a social life which made me feel down at times but as a whole I'd say I didn't let it get to me too much. I wouldn't go as far to say I felt lonely while using it, just a bit more socially inept than the friends I'd added.

Now, I have about 500 friends on facebook. These are not people I would talk to everyday, but if I were to see them IRL I would be really happy. We often hang out together. It's just I can't travel everyday to the other side of the country. Some are from school, some are from choir. You add people from a lot of sides. I know all these people IRL, I talk to them on a monthly basis. I wouldn't say they are all my friends, but they are certainly not strangers or people I wouldn't talk to if I saw them on the street!

I just recently rejoined FB. I was not on there for over a year. I did have maybe forty "friends." Now, I just have one because someone I know friend requested me. I won't go out of my way to friend request people because then I would wind up with a hundred so called friends.

I'm still not a big fan of FB though. I don't get it. I don't have any friends and don't want to pretend I do either.

I think it depends on how I am feeling at the given time. I like facebook and I like seeing what people I know are getting up to. But if I am in a low place it does feel like salt being rubbed in my wounds, but then again it can feel like that when I go outside and see people happy just going about their business.

I very rarely posted when I first joined it, and deactivated it at one point when my self-esteem was very low, but now I quite enjoy seeing my news feed, I like a lot of pages relating to loads of things and enjoy seeing that news. I manage it better now, I know if I am not feeling great about things in my life I stay away, but then sometimes I am honest and post it and get some comfort from some girls I know, all from different walks of life, which surprised me.

I also find it a good way communicating with some members of my family.