Facebook Lurking Makes You Unhappy
A relatively new phenomena at this festive time of year is the use of social media in order to show the world how your holiday is going. Whilst this in and of itself is completely harmless, for some this can really cause significant misery for those who “lurk” on Facebook rather than those who interact.
Lurking is basically looking at profiles etc without engaging with the people who you are looking at. There can be many reasons for lurking, but the most common is that the person feels intimidated by what they see which causes a resentment which can lead to sadness and in extreme cases even depression.
It is important to remember that social media is basically a shop front for your life, the more interesting you make it the more people will want to know more about you. However, this is a crafted image rather than a true representation of life. People will often only put out what makes them look good, so the information that you see has been edited at source.
Perhaps, the best way to combat that is to take a break from social media for a few days over the holidays and focus on the people that you are with in real time. Yes, the irony has not escaped me that I am putting this out on social media, when I am suggesting a social media break.
