Man, I'm so stressed out right now!!! It's not my job, my relationship, money worries. No, it's Facebook. Yes, that damn Mark Zuckerberg is to blame. Again.
 Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are meant to be fun. They're certainly not designed to cause stress or anxiety. However, it appears some Facebook users are experiencing those negative emotions, and the likelihood of doing so is higher the more invested one becomes.
This is, at least, what the results of a survey conducted by Edinburgh Napier University suggests. However, as only 200 people were surveyed, the results are hardly definitive.
A team at Edinburgh Napier University gathered online survey responses from 175 students about their feelings towards Facebook. Almost three quarters of respondents were women.
Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study, said: "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.
"It's like being a mini news channel about yourself. 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."
Some 12 per cent of respondents said Facebook makes them feel anxious. They had an average of 117 friends on the site, compared to an average of 75 friends for the rest of the students.
Acorss the whole sample, 63 per cent said they put off responding to new friend requests.
"Many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts," said Dr Charles.
Eleanor Barlow, an managing consultant specialising in cyberpsychology at IBM, said the claims were interesting, but should not be applied to the wider population on Facebook.
"Students often use Facebook in a quite different way to the rest of us," she explained.
"They are exploring their identity at that age, including online."
The research also highlighted that those with the most contacts of Facebook and those who had invested the most time in the site were the ones most likely to be stressed.
"An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that the best thing about Facebook was ‘keeping in touch', often without any further explanation," said Charles.
"But many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts.
Charles likened the social network to gambling, saying: "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."
 Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are meant to be fun. They're certainly not designed to cause stress or anxiety. However, it appears some Facebook users are experiencing those negative emotions, and the likelihood of doing so is higher the more invested one becomes.
This is, at least, what the results of a survey conducted by Edinburgh Napier University suggests. However, as only 200 people were surveyed, the results are hardly definitive.
A team at Edinburgh Napier University gathered online survey responses from 175 students about their feelings towards Facebook. Almost three quarters of respondents were women.
Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study, said: "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.
"It's like being a mini news channel about yourself. 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."
Some 12 per cent of respondents said Facebook makes them feel anxious. They had an average of 117 friends on the site, compared to an average of 75 friends for the rest of the students.
Acorss the whole sample, 63 per cent said they put off responding to new friend requests.
"Many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts," said Dr Charles.
Eleanor Barlow, an managing consultant specialising in cyberpsychology at IBM, said the claims were interesting, but should not be applied to the wider population on Facebook.
"Students often use Facebook in a quite different way to the rest of us," she explained.
"They are exploring their identity at that age, including online."
The research also highlighted that those with the most contacts of Facebook and those who had invested the most time in the site were the ones most likely to be stressed.
"An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that the best thing about Facebook was ‘keeping in touch', often without any further explanation," said Charles.
"But many also told us they were anxious about withdrawing from the site for fear of missing important social information or offending contacts.
Charles likened the social network to gambling, saying: "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."
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