Facebook friends cause real-life stress

A high number of Facebook friends increases the likelihood of negative Facebook-related psychological effects, an Edinburgh Napier University study has revealed.

A team of psychologists found that of 175 participants surveyed, 12 per cent reported that Facebook made them feel anxious. On average, these users had 117 friends each. The remaining 88 per cent of the participants, who did not experience Facebook-related anxiety, had only 75 friends on average.

Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study, said: “Our data […] suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety.

“We found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed.”

The results of the study may indicate that a greater amount of friends leads to more pressures to “be inventive and entertain”, which leads to negative psychological consequences.

"It's like being a mini news channel about yourself”, said Dr Charles. “The more people you have the more you feel there is an audience there. You are almost a mini celebrity and the bigger the audience the more pressure you feel to produce something about yourself.”

Further, the choice to withdraw from Facebook if it is causing a user stress, is itself accompanied by feelings of anxiety. The site now has over 500 million users worldwide.

“Many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts.

“Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good.”

Dr Charles also cited “feelings of exclusion”, “having to use appropriate etiquette for different types of ‘friends’” and “paranoia or envy of others’ lifestyles” as other forms of Facebook-related psychological tension.