Is Facebook Bad for Mental Health?

What gets me about Facebook is there are times I pour my heart out and I don;t any responses. Its not like that everytime. There are times I feel supported on FB. To be fair I try to be supportive toi my FB friends. Some are my friends offline. Plus my sister, her husband akaBil, my cousin Barb and other family members including my niece, her mother and father are on the social media site too.

I despise Facebook, but can see why people like it.

My IRL Facebook I only visit like once every few months to see how much better my old friends are doing than me. They're doing significantly better, so of course this makes me feel a ton worse about myself. Other than that I only have a bunch of people I could only call "acquaintances" added who don't really care and some family that I don't care enough about to keep up with in that manner. If something is important enough they call/text or I hear about it from my mom.

I have a separate one for online folks that I used to use to keep up with different friends I had and interest groups, but anymore it's jut a bunch of political BS I don't want to see or people telling everyone how great their life is. Only one person on there who was really just an acquaintance did I like seeing posts from because she struggled with a lot of mental health things and was very open about her struggles. After she ended up separating from her emotionally abusive husband though I couldn't bear reading her posts anymore, they triggered a lot of bad feels and thoughts in me.

Not Facebook per se but I'd say social media in general contributes to anxiety, jitteriness, shortened attention spans and depression. The barrage of "likes" and "follows" and other ego ticklers is addictive in the extreme. The worst side of people usually comes out and folks that may be meek in their private lives become obnoxious a...holes on social media. I try to avoid it as much as I can - but I'm not very successful at it. As for FB - I use it only professionally, so it's much less toxic for me than Twitter and Instagram

I don’t think Facebook is inherently bad. For me it depends on my state of mind and mental stability on a given day. I don’t really compare myself with others so that doesn’t bother me.

What really drives me up the wall is the hysterical political and social issue posts and rants..... From both the left and right. The hatred and condescending attitude towards those those who share opposing views is disturbing.

I’m old enough to remember a time when it was possible to have a civilized debate even with someone who’s views are polar opposites.

All is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:14.

It's best to avoid your triggers.

I hope that helps.

I've figured out Facebook is a trigger for me. Because I am homestuck and I don't want to see a guy I used to know hanging out with a beautiful girl and a manly bike behind both of them....

Key to enjoying facebook? Fill it with activities you enjoy and unfollow everyone who triggers you. It works.

I would extend this to ALL forms of social media.

At the root of all this is the dopamine fix one receives from interactions on social media. As Sean Parker (founding president of Facebook) noted, when someone likes your post, "we… give you a little dopamine hit."

More insidious for me are the following media:
1. Twitter. I post on Twitter about 2-3 times a day. Interesting articles, responses to questions raised by other "tweeps," and retweets of noteworthy posts. The advantage of Twitter over Facebook is the anonymity, and relative homogeneity of the content. On Facebook, you know the people whose posts appear in your feed. You went to school with them, worked with them, or met up with them at a Meetup or some other social setting. So their posts can be infuriating: photos of sipping pina coladas in Waikiki while surfing. On Twitter, however, you don't really know the people you interact with (of my 1,100 followers, I probably know 20 IRL).

The main problem is that Twitter has increased my need for instant gratification. Whenever I make a post, I eagerly await the vibration of my phone. This signals that someone has either liked my update, or I've gotten a new follower. Conversely, a post that goes unnoticed is a "shot through my heart" that compounds my already acute sense of defeat.
This "validation addiction" is dangerous. I'm currently applying for jobs, which is already an uphill battle. The minute I click "send" or "submit" on an app, I check my mailbox repeatedly. My mind gets flooded with anxiety, and thoughts swirl interminably through my head: "Did they see it?," "Why aren't they responding?"

2. LinkedIn. The destructive impact of LinkedIn is greater than that of Facebook. For me, at least. As I've intimated many times on this forum, my career is essentially in the toilet. After a string of career failures (i.e., getting canned more than a field of tomatoes) that accompanied personal disaster, I was diagnosed with Bipolar I in late 2016. My mental health has improved (at least according to others), as have my relationships with my family (thankfully). My career, however, has failed to rebound. I had one dead-end 8 month contract, and have been unemployed since October.

Now I'm in the process of looking for jobs. As I log in to LinkedIn, I see promotions of people who are younger than me / far less qualified. It makes me want to scream. Why did I fall so precipitously down the career ladder? The discouragement is already very profound; seeing these smiling faces only intensifies these feelings.

There are so many jobs out there that are well below my previous position in terms of pay, seniority, and prestige. Even though I have 2,000 connections, I'm loathe to reach out to them. As most of them have C-level titles, or have launched a successful business or 2, I feel humiliated approaching them for help with virtually entry-level positions.

Don't get me wrong: Facebook is a tough one. I get really discouraged when my posts get less than 50 likes, and seethe when I see groups of people living it up while my social life is rather boring. Additionally, the stream of information becomes overwhelming. I would say this is the "troublesome trifecta" of social media. Each feeds on separate weaknesses, and damages our mental health.

I would like to wean myself off of Facebook. Every time I've tried, however, I've "fallen off the wagon" after 1-2 days.
Oh well, I'll just have to "keep on truckin'," as the famous Grateful Dead song advises.

Oh, you mean "Fakebook".

Not a broad enough question , but the simple answer is Yes . It is unhealthy .
The whole internet experience is bad for your mental health and happiness . Information bombardment , unrealistic interactions on so called social media sites . I don't think it's a coincidence that suicide rates have increased since the information highway has become main stream , general happiness is lower and people dissatisfied with their life is on the increase .
its not going to change , we have gone from generations who were infatuated to the introduction of the net , to generations who only know the net in their lives . It's here to stay and going nowhere .
The more you can insulate yourself from it the better .

Facebook can be good and bad it is all about how we handle the topics and our comments and messages . It can be very saddening I see so many passing away that I know and I makes me feel like if I were not on facebook I would have never known .

I do love the moral support I get from so many so it does help me.

Love it! I must remember to use this! Thank you.

I want to also address a serious matter of naivety. On occasion I really get riled up and frustrated when I see this happen. I respond sometimes and sometimes then I get really fired up and increasingly stupid responses and sometimes it gets elevated to a personal attack. I cringe then when I see the name and a follow-up post I must then read. This becomes anxiety which is not good for my mental health. So yes, another type of incidence that is bad for MH.

The best sort of example is when people clearly don't stop to think before sharing a post which the truth of the matter is blatantly false. Check facts. Examples, the Whoopi Goldberg shirt fiasco, the pinch collar meme, etc.

Memes are often offensive and thus not good for mental health at all in my opinion.

Some very interesting and insightful perspectives here!

Yes, I think Facebook, or Fakebook lol, has both positive and negative aspects..... & I believe it can be bad for mental health for many. Like I wrote in the first post, it used to be really bad for my own mental health whenever I've been in a bad or negative place in life.

I don't experience any drama though.... oh OOPS! That's not true! I had one "friend" who used to poke jabs at a LOT of my posts. I finally had to confront him about it and deleted his comments on my posts. He stopped. That's the only real drama I've dealt with on there.

And yes, there seems to be drama on social media in general, so yeah, this is an interesting question to me to pose to people here. Hmmm.......

I have uninstalled the space draining app on my phone since I last posted and go in through my browser. Lo and behold saved in my 'on this day' memories is the start of where a couple of years ago this woman who I originally believed to have reconnected for reunion type purposes began her open hostilities on anything I posted. Today's memory started on this share of a famous composer who in my eyes I'm glad he's alive was born whatnot and she turned it into this political tyrade on the life/choice topic. I live in Massachusetts...ummm??...(you know...the bluesest of blue states...uhhh?? What?!) we went to high school together. I don't even get into the topic. At my core it's something I'd hope to not be in the situation to need to debate myself over...umm..I never have posted about such political/social topics prior and haven't really since. I wasn't exactly "flooding" anyones feeds for that matter.

Where fb can be bad for mh is imagine feeling attacked over something that wasn't even meant to be controversially heated or for debate or argument. I couldn't believe the hostility out of left field? We're talking even before presidential primaries/races out of left field well before as a society "the bickering" began.

I don't think Facebook is "bad" for mental health...
For a lot of people, it's helpful to keep in contact with distant friends and relatives...

But I do think being obsessed with Facebook is bad.
Facebook can make people narcissistic and because of that, it can cause others to feel insignificant when they compare their lives to those on Facebook.

I think FB can be bad for mental health from the perspective of their administration or mods or what have you, being very slow or completely negligent toward addressing or removing abusive types of posts and harassments, bullying, even bugs in their software. Some of the most simple problems aren't even fixed. I'm a bit slow with providing examples here but trust me, what I'm saying is correct, and it drives you nuts. So, yes, very bad for mental health - in some ways.

For me face book has been a positive thing for me. On my friends list i keep it to people that know me in real life and some online people that I have known for years. Also there are allot of depression, anxiety, ptsd support groups that are great for me. I also am a pet lover so i have joined a few groups. I think it comes down to what you use face book for. For me i don't get out much other then day program and bike riding so my social life is online it has been since i was a teen ager. Also i play games on face book like sugar crush. I have been lucky no negative or bullying on face book it's been pretty safe for me so far. How ever face book isn't for every one and i respect that too

I quit using facebook over 10 years ago.

my main reason for quitting was because of all the positive stuff on my facebook feed (and it made me realise how sad my life actually is)

- the games on their have you addicted for hours

-anyone can message you (even advertisements)

I believe facebook is bad for mental health, yes

Hi.
Yes I came off face book and to be honest felt better for not using it any more..
Best wishes x