Spending too much time with friends on Facebook may leave you feeling lonely and depressed.
A study conducted in September by MTV’s 24-hour college network mtvU, The Jed Foundation and The Associated Press suggests a correlation between active participation on social networking sites and loneliness, depression and mental illness.
“There are definitely people who chronically have a really emotional or dramatic status,” Weinberg freshman Abigail Gary said. “You just hope they would find a friend they could tell that to instead of posting it on the Internet.”
The study, released Oct. 7, found one in seven college students says social networking sites increase feelings of isolation. That makes sense in today’s virtual world, said social psychology Prof. Wendi Gardner.
“The more time we spend in computer-mediated communication, the less time, by and large, we’re spending in face-to-face communication,” she said. “Humans were built for face-to-face communication.”
The study surveyed more than 2,000 undergraduates aged 18-24 attending four-year colleges across the country. One-third of the students said they spend more than six hours online every day, and 90 percent said they had visited a social networking site in the past week.
Balancing social networking sites with personal social interaction is difficult, especially for college freshmen, Gardner said.
“You have this big circle of friends from high school, and now Facebook makes it easy to check in on them,” she said. “But the hours you’re spending doing that are hours you’re not out making new friends on campus.”
The study also found students use social networking sites to express feelings of depression and loneliness, with nearly 70 percent of students reporting they have read posts from someone close to them that seemed like a cry for emotional help.
In response to emotional posts, most students involved in the study said they would offer some form of support, but less than half would personally visit the friend.
Weinberg sophomore Michael Kurtz said he wouldn’t reach out to someone apparently suffering online unless he saw behavior that indicated mental illness directly.
“People over-share all the time on those websites: emotional, personal things that I feel uncomfortable seeing,” he said. “Anything you saw on a profile would have to be corroborated by behavior.”
For most people, Facebook can be a healthy complement to their social lives, Gardner said. But some students use the website in place of spending time with friends or spend so much time communicating with friends from home on Facebook they don’t make friends on campus.
“If people are feeling depressed, they should get help first,” Gardner said. “The second step should be to make more meaningful connections because the connections on Facebook are real, but they’re not face-to-face.”.
Dr. Wei-Jen Huang, a clinical psychologist and assistant director for Counseling and Psychological Services, said in an e-mail that by nature humans need something to live for, so relationships are extremely important. Eye contact, touch and verbal contact are necessary for humans to thrive, and those needs cannot be met by virtual relationships.
Huang said she has encountered many cases of NU students struggling with a sense of isolation, though not necessarily due to the use of social networking sites.
CAPS held a three-part workshop this fall on how to minimize feelings of isolation and establish meaningful relationships. More than 70 students attended, according to Huang.
Deep interpersonal connections and feelings of belonging are very important to happiness, Gardner said.
“If belonging works like a hunger, then Facebook can be kind of like junk food,” she said. “It’s easy, it’s quick, but it’s not as good as actual face-to-face, deep, rich connections.”
