How is Facebook a cause of anxiety and what are its effects

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are online platforms where people interact with each other to build social relations with other people based on their common social interests. Boyd and Ellison state that “SNSs constitute virtual communities where users can:(1)create a public or semi-public profile,(2)manage a list of other users with whom they have a connection,and(3)view and intersect their list of connections with those made by other users” (qtd. in Viega et al. 279). This connection is developed among the individuals on social networking website by social support and self-expression, which increases the popularity of the website and overall engagement. Out of all the social networking sites, with 2.23 billion active users, Facebook tops the chart (Lua). Furthermore, statistics have revealed that 68% of the Americans use Facebook (Smith and Anderson).

Hence, Facebook’s influence on our lives is becoming increasingly significant. With the heavy influence of Facebook, many authors and researchers have started to test the relationship between Facebook use and the resulting mental consequences. Many researchers have shown that the excessive“Facebook use has resulted in diminished interpersonal relationships, impoverished family time, and decline in academic and professional performance, increased levels of psychopathological symptoms, and poor health, among other detrimental health related effects” (Viega et al. 280).Terms like “Facebook depression” are devised by the mass media for those users that spend a considerable amount of time on Facebook (O’Keefe and Clark-Pearson).

Researchers show that the motivations behind this Facebook anxiety are relationship maintenance, companionship, and entertainment (Hormes et al.). On the other hand, studies done by researchers like Valkenburg et al. show that social media platforms like Facebook can build up one’s confidence level which may help one to boost up his self-esteem by proper positive recognition and positive feedback on his posts. So, Facebook can serve one in developing a healthy social life too.But still, many researchers have stated to study other aspects like personality traits and regularity of different activities on Facebook to reach a conclusion (Xie and Karan 80). Moreover, because of lack of any type of consensus on this research, this field is still open for research, without any specific conclusion. Furthermore, the denial of many anxious users of being anxious and addicted to Facebook worsens the problem. Although, Facebook might provide an adequate platform for more discussion and communication, because of its neoliberal environment, excessive usage, problem of less followers and friends, and its threats to relationships and friends, Facebook is a source of anxiety for many people.

The methodology being used in this research paper is based on the use of previously done researches. These researches include some valuable experimentations, results and discussions that will make a huge portion of this research paper. Furthermore, the use of statistics and surveys held by credible organizations will also play an important role in the argumentation. A huge portion of the research essay is going to be dependent on the case studies. These case studies provide significant amount of data in order to understand the relationship between different aspects of Facebook use and anxiety. Aspects like addiction, personal relationships, lower self-esteem etc., are discussed and critically developed in those case studies. Lastly, the opinions of experts are going to play an important role for further argumentation. These opinions will help us better understand the influence of Facebook on social life.

First of all, coming to the addictive aspect of Facebook, out of all the Social Networking Sites, Facebook has the potential of being the most addictive networking website. The main attraction for Facebook comes from the fact that Facebook facilitates maintenance and establishment of relationships with known or unknown people. In addition to relationships, it provides a big platform for self-expression, content sharing, entertainments, information seeking, spending leisure time, and gaming. Furthermore, researchers have argued that “online communication may represent a way to mitigate their anxiety about self-representation in interpersonal situations, feelings of loneliness, and depression” (Ryan et al). Even these activities are not limited. These unique features of Facebook have a strong potential to trigger the addictive behavior. Several other studies have argued for the need to conceptualize Facebook addiction as a mental health disorder. Hong et al.’s study has proved that more time spent of Facebook is positively corelated with addiction. Ryan et al. found that activities like entertainment, companionship, and passing time have an important role in developing the Facebook addiction. In addition to other aspects, it is argued that social interaction and entertainment are two strong predictors of Facebook addiction. According to the General Theory of Addiction (Jacobs), “addiction encompasses persistent, out of control behavioral patterns involving substance and activities, acquired over time, performed as a coping strategy (i.e., to escape unpleasant situations or thoughts)”. By using the definition of addiction as discussed in the General Theory of Addiction, studies have identified a strong positive correlation between frequent Facebook use, anxiety and depression. It has been revealed that anxiety is a strong personality factor for Facebook addiction (Xie and Karan, 83). People with higher trait anxiety are found to be more addicted to Facebook to escape the stress in real life (Hong et al.). Additionally, such results further reveal that people get highly anxious when they are not using Facebook for a longer period of time. Facebook addicted users have shown a very strong psychological and emotional attachment to Facebook. Hence, this problematic and frequent use of Facebook is a symptom of anxiety and plays a crucial role in developing it.

In addition to Facebook addiction as a source of anxiety, the neoliberal environment provided by Facebook is another factor. As discussed earlier, Facebook strong facilitates relationships among people. Facebook allows easy access to friends and other people. People can watch each other’s comments, likes and dislikes, friends’ list, photos, liked posts, about section, mutual friends, tagged photos etc. You can message anyone you want to. You can send friend request to anyone. Despite of data privacies, the profiles can still be searched, investigated, and other information can be found via other features. Facebook suggests those people for a friend who have visited their profile. Privacy International, an organization that keeps the data of social networking websites regarding privacy, charged Facebook with severe privacy flaws and put it in the second lowest category for “substantial and comprehensive privacy threats” (“GOOGLE Worst on Privacy; a Report”). This shows that how much open of an environment Facebook provides to its users. University students have said that Facebook is quite harmful to their relationships as it can lead one to break-up. If one wants to safeguard his relationship with anyone, he or she should quite Facebook. Several students have deactivated their accounts to make their future relationships possible. Furthermore, students believe that “Facebook transformed them into anxious, jealous, and monitoring selves that they did not want to be.” (Gershon 866). Why do students think this wayregarding Facebook? Gershon argues that Facebook’s interface “is structed to encourage a neoliberal engagement with others” (867). Based on her experience with former Facebook users, Gershon further persuades that information provided by Facebook about users is very flawed. Users found that the information is either way too much, or way too vague to judge any Facebook user. “They describe this combination of excess and incompleteness as flaws inherent to Facebook, with users trying to interpret the alliances performed on their lover’s Facebook profile” (Gershon 866). The involvement of family members further worsens the problem for them (Gershon 867). This structure of Facebook as a social networking website is deteriorating the quality relationships. Gershon further argues that “It also encourages people to assess others’ profiles and create alliances based on neoliberal assumptions that link the self to consumers” (880). People find themselves often stalking on each other’s profiles, photos and about sections, and they interact with each other based on the posts of the user. This reveals that how Facebook encourages more and more alliances and interactions. Gershon reasons that the more alliances one forms, the riskier it gets for him or her. Because of potentially fake or inappropriate users and ex-es of the person, this becomes a big disturbance in the social life of a person. And if these risky people somehow seek out some private information by stalking on profiles and tagged photos, the users get in a huge risk, which is a huge concern for them. In short, the neoliberal environment of Facebook provokes interactions and alliances, which puts them at a potential risk of getting exposed and it further harms the relationships.“Graham D.L (2016) implicated Facebook in increased anxiety levels due to users’ tendencies to quantify relationships which can potentially result in prolonged social anxiety” (Hughes 14). Hence,this bizarre environment of Facebook is most likely a cause of anxiety for its users.

Furthermore, the lack of friends and followers is another factor of anxiety on Facebook. As we have seen earlier that Facebook provides a very open environment for connections; according to multiple media outlets, this feature of Facebook is likely to be served as a “social lubricant” for the nervous, lonely and unconfident people (Dailey). Researchers argue that Facebook provides a starting point for such users to enhance their social lives. The users being discussed are those that have lower self-esteem, which means that they are introverted and socially anxious. Such people have less satisfactory connections with their companions on Facebook (Forest and Wood 295). Such users consider self-disclosure to ensure likeability and strong relationships, but in the context of Facebook, this self-disclosure is highly risky. Small concerns on one’s privacies can leave these socially anxious people battered and unconfident. Facebook is quite appealing to lower self-esteem people for communication as they may find it less awkward to express themselves online. In fact, Forest and Wood found that people with lower self-esteem consider Facebook to be a safer place for self-expression (297). In another case study held by them, even though lower self-esteem showed positive attitude towards Facebook being a safe platform for self-disclosure, they were not able to fully avail the opportunity because these users made more negative and less positive posts which were less liked by their friends or strangers (298). In their third case study, they tried to find out the response of friends of the lower self-esteem people towards their posts, either they give a negative or response to them, as friends have more information about the behavior, moods and the expressive style of their lower self-esteem friends. The results were not in the favor of lower self-esteem users, because their negative posts were not able to grab the attention of their friends, and hence, they were not rewarded for their self-disclosure (299). In short, “The results of the three studies reported here, however, suggest that the way in which people with low self-esteem use Facebook may prevent them from reaping its potential social benefits” (Forest and Wood 300). The results positively correlate the relation between anxiety and influence of Facebook on lower self-esteem people as it is revealed that they are more ignored ones and are more liable to anxious and depressive emotions and behaviors. Secondly, as discovered that Facebook’s interface provides an extensive amount of information regarding friends list (Gershon), Facebook encourages one to check the network alliances of users, which inspires different users to compete with each other . This further uplifts the anxiety level of lower self-esteem people as they do not find themselves competitive in this field (Gershon 876).“A study conducted by Steers, Wickham, & Acitelli (2014) supported the notion that the long one spends using Facebook the greater the likelihood that they will engage in spontaneous upward social comparison and as a result experience negative emotional states regularly and thus increasing their risk to depression” (Hughes 16).Hughes further mentions that “Facebook offers an overwhelmingly positive impression of one’s Facebook friends which prompts comparisons which in turn elevates the risk of negative self- appraisal, which over prolonged periods of time increases the individual’s likelihood of developing depression” (34). Thus, this social comparison and competition, along with negative nature of their posts, people with lower self-esteem develop anxious and depressive behavior.

In addition to all the factors discussed earlier, Facebook usage has further led to many other negative impacts that are making its users socially anxious. One of them is the aspect of inappropriate behavior of the users. Research has shown that inappropriate comments on different social networking platforms can lead to a few factors that can give rise to a few potential risks (Butler). Furthermore, Catanzaro found in his research that a significant number of incidents of cyberbullying among adolescents have been recorded on Facebook in different parts of United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and North America. To support the research of Catanzaro, Holladay further notices that one in five young ones are targeted by cyberbullies. In a survey conducted with undergraduate students regarding cyberbullying, most of the respondents knew at least one incident of cyberbullying which happened to one of their friends on Facebook (Walker et al.). This shows that how much frequent these case incidents of cyberbullying happen on Facebook. Moreover, Wihbey has stated in his research that there are too many unknown consequences and privacy issues that involve professors, college student interactions on Facebook. A recent study showed that actual risk perception significantly correlates with fear of online victimization. This factor of cyberbullying and inappropriate behavior of Facebook users is directly related to social anxiety. In addition to cyberbullying and inappropriate behavior, research by Karpinski and others have shown that students who spent more time on Facebook had lower GPAs compared to those that spent less time. Using Facebook and texting during class were significantly related to poor academic progress (Cotten). “In a survey of high school teachers by Pew Research Center, concluded that obviously the Internet and other digital tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on these students’ research work, the majoritywith short attention spans,” and these technologies “do more to distract students than to help them”(Lee 87-88). In conclusion, cyberbullying, negative behavior on Facebook result in social anxiety, and excessive use of Facebook has resulted in poor academic performance that is another cause of anxiety for students.

            This research had multiple important findings on anxiety and Facebook use. The addiction of Facebook and its link with anxiety was discussed that how frequent usage affects the users and makes them depressed. The findings concluded that checking Facebook ID again and again and not receiving any type of response from friends are symptoms of anxiety. Another discussed topic is the neoliberal environment of Facebook, one of the least highlighted aspect of Facebook. We found that how Facebook promotes communication with each other and how can it lead to anxiety. Furthermore, we investigated the working of Facebook interface. The most highlighted side was the social one that was regarding the friendships and relations i.e., how alliances are formed, what role Facebook plays to those alliances, how Facebook endangers those alliances and interactions, how Facebook develops negative emotions like jealousy and anxiety among  its users, what kind of thinking and competition Facebook can develop and what it can further lead to. Next, we had a look on privacy issues which revealed that Facebook has many leaked pathways that can lead to information leakage, and this information can lead to cyber abuse. We also had a look on the perception of different people to Facebook as a platform for self-disclosure and Facebook as a “social lubricant”. The research showed that people with lower self-esteem were the most anxious one because they were not able to the reap the social benefits the way they should have been, because of their negative emotions. This leads them down to the path of anxiety. Another important finding was how less likes on different posts and photos can lead to anxiety. Many other aspects of cyberbullying and inappropriate behavior were also discussed in subject of anxiety. And lastly, we put a glance on the parenting and academic performance of students and its relationship with Facebook usage. All of the findings brought us to one conclusion, that Facebook is a big cause social anxiety in different ways, and the outcomes of this social anxiety can lead to many other detrimental effects that can deeply influence the mental health, performance, and life-style of people. Most of the victims of  this social anxiety are the adolescents and students.

As Facebook is the most popular social networking site, it’s influence on teenagers is greatest when it comes to social media. The anxiety and other aspects are relatable to every single user of Facebook. Every user who wants self-exposure or a better social life has to go through some kind of levels of anxiety on Facebook. This makes this topic diverse and puts it under a spotlight. This research field is broad and multiple factors are still unanswered in this field. The in-depth analysis regarding gender-differences on anxiety, Facebook interface promoting depression, types of interactions one faces on Facebook that lead to uneasiness, researches on Facebook on a diverse level of population etc., are some of those unanswered topics. Furthermore, the personality traits like trait anxiety and state anxiety and its link with Facebook have limited information and resources for the research. Next comes the solutions to the concerns raised above. There are more problems as compared to the solution to this topic. Many experts have opiniated to use maximum privacy settings in order to secure oneself from phishing, stalking, fake profiles, data mining, cyberbullying, and inappropriate behaviors. Parental control is also highly recommended for teenagers. Moreover, there is no proper counselling for those people that are victim of this problem. People, especially students, hardly manage to escape from the perils of anxiety caused by Facebook use which develops negative emotions and uneasiness in them which is further detrimental to their academic performance and mental health. In addition to this, most of the students try to keep their parents away from their Facebook profiles. Adolescents make their Facebook profiles before achieving the legal age (Lee 96). In short, this field will always be open for research with the progression of time, as more and more advancements will take place on Facebook.