Negative Impacts of Facebook

Facebook Psychology

It has been more than ten years since Facebook was launched in February 2004. Given the fundamental purpose of Facebook for supporting social networking and communication on a global scale, this social networking platform is of special interest to communication researchers and other social scientists. Over the past ten years, social networking platforms like Facebook have become phenomenally popular. Recent reports by Smith (2014) and Kross et al. (2013) indicate 57% of all American adults use Facebook; 73% of all adolescents aged 12 to 17 uses Facebook; 64% of Facebook users visit the site daily; and approximately 500 million Facebook users worldwide visit the site daily.

Despite the rise in the popularity of social networking platforms like Facebook, little research exists concerning the potential influences of Facebook use on the psychological concepts of identity, self-esteem, and subjective well-being. A key research question concerns whether Facebook use has psychological outcomes on constructs like identity, self-esteem, subjective well-being and whether these are negative or positive.

To address this, Anderson, Woodnutt, and Chamorro-Premuzic (2012) investigated the relationship between Facebook use and the impacts on self-esteem. The findings of the study suggest that positive feedback on Facebook can enhance self-esteem, while negative comments, to the contrary, can diminish self-esteem (Anderson, Woodnutt, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2012).

Kross et al. (2013) examined how Facebook use influences subjective well-being by measuring how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied people feel with their lives. The study was conducted over two weeks and controlled for the amount of time participants spent on Facebook during the two-week test period. Results showed that regular Facebook use results in negative shifts in subjective well-being. Additionally, the negative impacts of Facebook use were much larger in comparison to the amount of time participants spent using Facebook. Thus, participants who used Facebook regularly were more likely to have experienced declines in their overall sense of subjective well-being whereas normal face-to-face social interaction did not appear to negatively impact their subjective well-being. Also, it is important to note that the researchers found that the negative impacts of Facebook use on subjective well-being were not affected by pre-existing negative emotional states like loneliness. Controlling for as many variables as possible, the overall findings were that direct, in-person, social contact increased users’ sense of well-being while the use of Facebook predicted a decreased sense of well-being.

Facebook: Number of Friends, Self-Presentation, and Motives

In a 2011 study, Kim and Lee investigated the potential effect of Facebook use on user subjective well-being and how Facebook may function to increase user subjective well-being. This research focused on two variables the number of Facebook friends and self-presentation strategies. Positive self-presentation refers to the act of depicting oneself on Facebook by highlighting personal accomplishments and achievements, expressing an optimistic view of life, and generally avoiding negative or self-deprecating comments. Honest presentation refers to a more balanced and objective presentation of self that involves recognition and acknowledgment of personal strengths and weaknesses. The researchers found that users with moderate numbers of Facebook friends and positive self-presentation improved their subjective well-being. However, positive self-presentation appeared to enhance subjective well-being for Facebook users as did honesty in presentation for Facebook users who truly experienced social support on Facebook as authentic social support.

The above findings corroborate the work of Krämer and Winter (2008) which suggests that impression management is a major motive for people who actively and regularly participate in social networking sites like Facebook. Impression management refers to the process of trying to manage the perceptions of other social networking users. Kim and Lee (2011) found that the indiscriminate one-to-many communication on Facebook and other social networking sites, in which a user broadcasts any given message to a mass of people, tend to be messages that promote public self-focus and self-referential processing. This combination of cognitive factors can readily serve to distort thinking and social judgments. Other researchers including Barasch and Berger (2014) and Goncalves, Kostakos, and Venkatanathan (2013) found that social media broadcasting encouraged people to share self-presentational content with the hope of influencing the perception of their image. Conversely, narrowcasting by way of communication with another individual encourages people to share content that is only useful to the message recipient. Facebook and other social networking sites are unique in this respect as broadcasting and narrowcasting represent dual options at virtually all times. This, of course, is not a possibility in ordinary face-to-face communication. Finally, Cupchik (2011) investigated Facebook use concerning psychological participatory motives. The researcher found four facets of self, actual versus ideal, public versus private, engaged versus detached and implicit versus explicit, relate to four corresponding motives for engaging in internet activity: connection; validation; compensation; and exploration. Cupchik concluded that Facebook use and its impact on subjective well-being is a function of conditional and personal variables, the motives of the user, and a user’s perception of self. Turkle (2011) raises an interesting point on this: despite the motives for being online, we are biologically wired for novelty. From an evolutionary perspective this is considered to have been a defensive reaction; will we be eaten or injured by the sudden movement in the brush. However, in our technological age, this can be seen as a threat to our emotional selves as well. Facebook users check to see if they are being discussed, and in what context. Facebook can notify the user if they have been mentioned, or “tagged” in images; if somebody has responded to the user’s posts; etc. Users can check to see if their positive comments have received support or if they are being ridiculed. How users interpret such comments online may be a factor of emotional predispositions.

Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem Moderators

Whereas Kross, et al. (2013), and Kim and Lee (2011) focused on the effects of Facebook on subjective-wellbeing, Gonzales and Hancock (2011) have extended communication research to the psychological construct of self-esteem. They compared two contrasting hypotheses, Objective Self-Awareness (OSA) and the Hyperpersonal Model, to test whether exposure to Facebook use diminished or enhanced self-esteem. Objective Self-Awareness theory argues that as a person becomes more introspective in this context there is an increased tendency to analyze and compare external behavior to internal principles. The OSA model theorizes that this metacognitive self-awareness in conjunction with Facebook use diminishes self-esteem, yet the researchers found self-awareness advanced through one viewing one’s own Facebook profile improved self-esteem. These findings support the Hyperpersonal Model which suggests communication through the use of two or more electronic devices allows Facebook users certain advantages in regulating self-presentation such that the use of Facebook becomes an overall positive experience. Despite this, other researchers have found the effects of moderating factors like depression, identity formation problems, and low self-esteem.

Moderators: Attachment Style, Personality Traits, Interpersonal Competency

To investigate the interrelationships between attachment style, personality traits, and interpersonal competency, Jenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, and Johnson (2013) examined the online behaviors of Facebook users. The researchers utilized the Five-Factor personality model that describes one’s personality in the context of five domains, each on a continuum. This model is often referred to by the OCEAN acronym based upon the five domains of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These are not dichotomous personality characteristics; one is not simply Agreeable or Disagreeable. Each factor is a continuum with the wide variance within each of the factor scales.

The researchers found that study participants scoring higher on the OCEAN neurosis scale, and those having an insecure attachment style experienced negative indirect effects of Facebook use. Facebook users with attachment problems tend to manifest these problems in communications on social networks, often even in magnified and exacerbated ways. For example, individuals who failed to develop trusting relationships early in life with parents or primary caregivers tended to behave on Facebook in ways that were consistent with a lack of trust in relationships. Such behaviors may include questioning and doubting the motives of other Facebook users, assuming that other Facebook users have selfish motives and intentions, and even believing that nobody has truly altruistic intentions. Similarly, Sheldon, Abad, and Hinsch (2011) investigated whether Facebook helps people meet their relatedness needs. The researchers found that Facebook use is correlated with both relatedness satisfaction and relatedness dissatisfaction. In context, this means Facebook, with its one-to-many communication capabilities, can serve to heighten and intensify the psychological impact of communication. However, the psychological influences of Facebook are dependent on the Facebook user's fundamental attachment orientation; that is, whether people developed healthy or dysfunctional attachments during their developmental years (van der Horst, 2011).

Moderators: Depressive Rumination and Corumination

Davila et al. (2012) examined the relationships between social networking and depression. The researchers found that depressive rumination and co-rumination affected the social networking experience, specifically, the positive or negative psychological influences of Facebook use. Corumination is discussion and reflection with friends and peers involving mutual focus and discussion about personal issues. Similarly, depressive rumination involves the brooding and contemplation of personal problems and negative issues to the point that no balance or consideration is given to the positive side of life. Ultimately, the researchers found that Facebook users with depressive rumination and/or tendencies towards negative co-rumination generally experience negative interactions and negative psychological influences. These data suggest Facebook users with a predisposition for negative psychological outcomes will experience similar results in using this social networking platform.

Rumination as a Mechanism for Negative Social Comparison

Feinstein et al. (2013) predicated their research on the growing scientific consensus that the subjective quality of the social networking experience is a moderating factor of potential negative psychological outcomes of Facebook use. In this respect, the researchers investigated two basic questions: whether the tendency to negatively compare oneself with others leads to increased symptoms of depression; and whether such an association is moderated by increased rumination. The researchers found that the moderation effect of increased rumination was significant; also, negative comparison of oneself with others can lead to increased rumination which, then, results in increased depression (Feinstein et al., 2013). Thus, for some Facebook users with a negative world view, involvement in this social networking platform is like a vicious self-feeding cycle whereby rumination leads to increased depression and increased depression further leads to more rumination.

Online Social Networking: Motive(s), Personalities, and Negative Consequences

Investigating online social networking as a social phenomenon requires treatment of basic questions related to the motives for social networking involvement; the personalities of social networking users; and the relationship that motives and personality factors may have concerning potential negative consequences of using social network platforms like Facebook. Along these lines, Kuss and Griffiths (2011) investigated motives for social networking use, personalities of social networking users, and the negative consequences of social networking use. The researchers found that a primary motive for the use of social networking was the maintenance of existing offline social networks; users are leveraging high tech multimedia capabilities to maintain contact with family, friends, and others. They also discovered evidence that personality significantly influences the reasons for using Facebook. Extroverts tend to use Facebook and social networking sites for social enhancement; introverts, on the other hand, tend to use Facebook and other social networking sites for social compensation (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011). Thus, online social networks may help the introvert develop a broader social system in an environment that may be experienced as safer to explore and grow in.

Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?

In further examining the relationship between personality and the psychological influences of using social networking sites like Facebook, Krasnova, Wenninger, Widjaja, and Buxmann (2013) investigated the relationship between Facebook use and feelings of envy. They hypothesized that social networking sites like Facebook offer users unprecedented and unmatched capability for social comparison by way of monitoring the activities of others. The researchers hypothesized that heightened social comparison driven by feelings of envy may have negative impacts on perceived life satisfaction. Ultimately, the researchers found that Facebook users who engage in passive participation experience exacerbated feelings of envy along with a decrease in life satisfaction.

Frequency: the Sense of Subjective Well-being

Given the fact that so many Facebook users are daily users, another question is whether or not the frequency of Facebook uses moderates or influences psychological outcomes. To answer that question Chou and Edge (2012) investigated the impact of using Facebook on the perceptions users hold for the lives of others and, by comparison, their sense of subjective well-being. It was found that people who use Facebook more frequently and for longer durations tend to view other people as being relatively happier; the same population of participants also tended to agree that life is unfair and that other users have better lives.

Discussion

Research has shown that Facebook use can have negative impacts on the psychological concepts of identity, self-esteem, and/or subjective sense of well-being. However, these types of negative effects do not occur for all Facebook users. These possible negative effects of Facebook use, especially of extended duration and frequency, may be driven by one’s personality, and other psychological qualities. It appears that Facebook use may have a negative impact on one’s tendency for co-rumination or depressive rumination, quality of personal attachments, degree of neuroticism, and other personality factors like extroversion, introversion, and passivity.

Facebook provides hundreds of millions of people worldwide with a platform for meeting basic human needs for social interaction, social communication, and the building of social relationships. However, Facebook can have negative psychological impacts on one’s self-identity, self-esteem, and sense of well-being. Kim and Lee (2011) found, for example, that certain behavioral and conditional variables may moderate the impact of Facebook use on psychological constructs like subjective well-being. Concerning the number of Facebook friends, it makes perfect sense from a social psychology point of view that Facebook users with a moderate number of friends would tend to have some degree of authentic social support. These types of users are not orientated to superficial encounters with large numbers of people or to a neurotic focus on a select few Facebook friends. It appears Facebook users who experience their online friends as the equivalent of friends in the traditional sense will have positive experiences on the platform because of honest presentation. In other words, for the Facebook user who has real/authentic friends and reaches out to those friends for support, honest presentation improves subjective well-being because users receive validation of the truth about themselves (Pigliucci, 2012). Conversely, when Facebook users are fully aware of the superficiality of their friendships and relationships on this social networking platform, it would stand to reason that they would not take too seriously the comments and/or criticisms of their Facebook “friends”. Therefore for this type of self-aware Facebook user, the opportunity to present oneself positively amounts to a healthy exercise in visualizing a better self in terms of identity, self-esteem, and subjective well-being and is recognized by researchers as a way to develop a healthy and more mature self-concept and identity (Shaffer, 2009). Thus, while some researchers fear that Facebook use is ultimately damaging to such psychological constructs as self-esteem, such claims may need to be qualified as only being true for certain types of users who are prone to the moderating effects of co-rumination, depressive rumination, and so forth.

It is often presumed that computer-mediated communication is, in and of itself, inherently harmful psychologically concerning impacts on the psychological concepts of identity, self-esteem, and subjective well-being (Wright & Webb, 2011). Yet research shows that Facebook users can use this communication platform for the benefit of their sense of personal well-being. Facebook users with a tendency towards ruminating depression, low sense of self-efficacy, or a predisposition to jealousy and envy have an increased likelihood of an online experience that enhances negative self-view. On the other hand, Facebook users with a generally positive world view and who utilize this social networking platform to support relationship building, communication, and peer engagement tend to experience Facebook as psychologically and emotionally helpful. This is precisely why Anderson et al. (2012) sum up Facebook psychology as an opportunity for either boosting or diminishing self-esteem based on how particular Facebook users respond to positive and negative feedback and comments from other Facebook users.

One motive for Facebook use is the maintenance of organic, offline relationships across distance in a multimedia manner. This is essentially the evolution of the telephone; Facebook use, in this context, offers a more complex and powerful way to stay in touch. By extension, Facebook users who have family relationship problems and other interpersonal issues within their circle of family, friends, and relationships, will likely continue to experience the primary experience of these relationships (Leifer & Fleck, 2013). In other words, if reaching out and connecting with a family member face-to-face has historically resulted in negative consequences to identity, self-esteem, and subjective well-being, Facebook will serve as an extension of that dynamic (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011).

The findings of Krasnova et al. (2013) which suggest that Facebook users who engage in passive participation experience exacerbated feelings of envy along with a decrease in life satisfaction while Facebook users who engage in social networking in a proactive and emotionally self-regulated manner would tend not to experience feelings of envy and consequential decreases in life satisfaction. Facebook use can, of course, promote public self-focus, leading to self-referential processing when making social judgments which may lead to cognitive distortion (Wen-Bin & Chun-Chia, 2013). This distortion can be a vehicle for negative influences on variables like identity, self-esteem, and a subjective sense of well-being (Davila, et al., 2012). But a person’s psychological condition determines what he/she experiences.

In conclusion, some researchers have asserted that with computer-mediated communication like Facebook "technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies” and a substitute for reality (Turkle, 2011, p. 1). It is, therefore, feared that Facebook use will generally result in negative impacts on one’s self-image. The findings of this literature review suggest that a predisposition to a negative world view may be enhanced by Facebook use while those with a generally positive outlook on life will have a more supportive and positive experience.

Facebook is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Much of whether or not Facebook serves positive psychological outcomes boils down to moderating factors. But even further, Facebook users ultimately decide for themselves, albeit unconsciously, whether this social networking platform will produce negative or positive outcomes. There are many other factors to consider that need formal investigation. How are the results discussed in this paper affected by analyses of subgroups such as socioeconomic status, culture, education level, gender, age, etc.? As the increase of virtual reality experiences wherein one assumes the role of a person in a virtual world, such as with the Sims game, will we find that relationships built in these brave new worlds become as meaningful if not more so than those in traditional social interactions? Turkle’s (2011) discussion of the Second Life wedding she attended sends a resounding, “Yes” to the question.

We are in the midst of a socio-technological paradigm shift, and the rules of relationships seem to be changing. We are also in the infancy of understanding how these changes are affecting social interactions across all domains. A great deal of research will be needed as these virtual social worlds and communication systems develop.