The Social Media Effect by Aryn LipNicki
(link: http://arynlipnicki.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/the-social-media-effect)

Personal Satisfaction - the largest negative effect of social media is the fact that studies have shown that Facebook actually makes us less satisfied with our own lives. The cause for this seems to be that we have a tendency to share only positive things in our life on social media, but not the negatives. As a result, we present a utopian picture of our lives to the outside world, despite what the reality may be. I don’t think it is always a conscious decision to do this, we just simply choose not to share the more challenging aspects of our lives with the world at large, often saving that for those closest to us. This is completely understandable, but from the receiving side of things, we are only seeing great things happening in our peers’ lives. Then also consider the increased magnitude of people from whom we see regular updates, compared to in the past. There is a big difference between hearing the good news from your dozen close friends, and hearing about all of the positive things that happen in the lives of your 140 Facebook friends. Suddenly we are constantly being bombarded with updates as people get engaged, married, have kids, buy houses, get job promotions, take amazing vacations – it can all be a bit overwhelming. My takeaway from all this: realistically this isn’t something that is going to change, but try to keep in mind the effect as you use social media on a regular basis. I mean this on both sides of the fence. When something exciting happens to you, take a moment to consider if you really want to post a status update to the world about it, or if sharing it (in a more personal manner) with your friends and family will do. I am not saying not to share anything good that happens, just consider not sharing everything.
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