The anti-social network: Facebook has negative implications on the friendships of young adults

Abstract

          This essay explores the negative impact that Facebook has had on the relationships that young adults share with friends and colleagues. Examining such scholarly resources as Kaliarna (2016) to classify online relationships, Young (2013) to study adult friendships in the Facebook era and Bevan, Pfyl and Barclay (2012) to highlight the ramifications of Facebook friend deletion, I will highlight the characteristics of friendship and how they compare when applied to online and offline environments. This will factor in the concept of the online persona as a key component of Facebook use, as well as identify issues young adults face such as identity construction and depression.

          Keywords: social media, Facebook, friendships, depression, online

          Known universally as the social network, Facebook has become a fixture in the everyday lives of a large portion of the world population and is a medium for much of their social activity. While it has been proposed in academic circles and media outlets that Facebook has been a positive facilitator in both maintaining existing friendships and creating new ties, I contend that it is an agent in eroding the quality of those relationships. For young adults, friendships are of critical importance as they are intrinsic in helping one negotiate a stage of life where self-discovery is most prevalent, and they aid in providing key emotional support and a sense of self-worth (Best, Taylor and Manktelow, 2015). Firstly, I will discuss factors that lead to problematic scenarios including comparisons between offline and online relationships, friendship deletion and miscommunication. I will then cover the link between depression and Facebook relationships and psychological behaviours such as indirect posting and bullying. This will be followed by the impact of Facebook has had on friendships through identity construction and online persona.

          Friendship can be defined as a mutual union of trust and emotional fulfillment between two people (Young, 2013) and exists in many forms and in varying degrees of strength. As a social networking site, Facebook has provided unprecedented opportunities for people to experience social fulfillment and make new connections, which are facilitated efficiently via content that is of mutual interest to multiple parties. Along with email provisions, people engage with their peers by uploading dialogue regarding their lives, media such as photos or video, and content such as links to news reports relating to personal interest. Facebook has proven to be gratifying and enjoyable in both maintaining existing friendships, building closer relationships with acquaintances and acquiring new relationships. People now comport their relationships on Facebook more readily than any other scenario and it has evolved so far beyond its original intended purpose to connect people, it has become a social custom (Bevan, Pfyl and Barclay, 2012). Despite this, some authors have questioned the value and depth of online friendships, and whether they are comparatively significant to those that exist offline (Best, Taylor and Manktelow, 2015).

          The foundation of a meaningful friendship is built on good and bad experiences that occur offline, and the lessons and growth gained from these (Froding and Peterson, 2012). As the reliance on Facebook for social discourse increases, there are concerns that some are settling for friendships of a lower quality and superficial nature, and have adopted a philosophy that interaction with other’s posts is an adequate substitute for verbal communication (Sharp, 2012). Whilst it is common for an individual to develop a close relationship with another person or a friendship group on Facebook, they are more likely to form weaker ties with larger amounts of people as it can allow one to interact conveniently without the time constraints involved in offline friendships. Facebook presents a daily newsreel of the lives of friends both through status updates and photographic representations. Due to these regular updates, people feel as they can stay abreast of the what occurs in the lives of their friends, and therefore may not make the effort to socialise as often (Thompson, 2018). One or both parties may develop a perception that the quality of the friendship has diminished due to complacency.

          Whilst Facebook can erode friendships over time, the provision and practice of deleting friends is a decisive action that can cause irreparable damage. Whilst some may do so out of feeling as though they have too many weak ties or non-essential acquaintances, some have reasoned that they do so as the result of disliking the content produced by their friends, their online persona or that the quality of their friendships offline are diminishing (Young, 2013). Any form of disagreement that occurs on Facebook may inspire an impulsive decision to delete another person from their list of friends as a means of punishment or revenge. The fact that this can be performed at the couple of clicks of a button before any mediation can take place means dissention can escalate rapidly. It is a damning example of how Facebook plays a hand in the dissolution of a relationship before there is an opportunity for the two parties to attempt to resolve the issues in an offline setting (Bevan, Pfyl and Barclay, 2012). Whilst friendship deletion on Facebook may not be viewed with the same level of severity as the termination of an offline relationship, it does carry with it many of the same characteristics that cause feelings of rejection and despondency. Facebook is problematic to friendship groups in this scenario, especially when friend’s lists are visible on a profile, as an individual may observe the other party in a mutual friend’s lists after the fact, which could in turn place a strain on other friendships (Young, 2013). The fallout from the ending of a friendship means that emotion can take over, and with the tools to distribute communication quickly and to a wide audience at one’s disposal, a fixable disagreement can spiral out of control. One could well use this platform to publicly humiliate somebody, spread rumours and outright lies very quickly, and try to turn their entire friendship base against them (Chapin, 2014). Conflict on Facebook instigates a slippery slope in the downfall of friendships, and whilst these may be solved in a civil manner in some cases, the potential for escalation is evident. This could enter into the territory of cyber-bullying, which has been proven to have extreme effects on mental health and wellbeing, in some cases leading to drug use and suicide (Chapin, 2014).

          Consequently, this raises another concern about reliance on Facebook to experience and sustain friendships at the expense of other methods exposes issues that only physical and verbal interaction can quash. Depression is commonly experienced by young adults and can easily isolate and alienate the sufferer from other people, even from family members and those with whom they share close ties (Steers, Wickham and Acitelli, 2014). One of the distinctions of the of Facebook is that individuals are more readily exposed to the lives of their friends and are constantly privy to visual updates such as photographs that they would otherwise only experience in a face-to-face situation. If one were to consider a scenario where an individual is suffering from depressive symptoms, a lack of self-worth and perceived shortcomings in their own life loom large. Accessing Facebook, they would immediately be confronted with a barrage of information regarding others that they cannot anticipate seeing (Steers, Wickham and Acitelli, 2014). This might lead them to indulge in social comparison, where they will measure the content of friend’s lives against their own (Steers, Wickham and Acitelli, 2014). This has proven to exacerbate a depressive state if one feels inept and hard done by when compared to their friends, which may well lead to feelings of resentment (Nesi and Prinstein, 2015). This, along with any perceptions of a lack of popularity amongst their peers can be perpetuated through Facebook, and any feelings of exclusion are a detriment to one’s well-being (Best, Taylor and Manktelow, 2015). Unlike offline environments, social calendars are visible to online friends and documentation of a social gathering which is publicly visible may well subject an individual who was not included in the plans to feelings of exclusion which will heighten negative emotions (Young, 2013).

          Like many online platforms, Facebook represents a safe space for individuals to interact, which means one is more inclined to be transparent about their feelings and emotions. Whilst honesty is considered an important element of friendship, expressing this on Facebook can be the catalyst of further emotional stress. People who openly disclose depressive or negative emotions on Facebook do so with the intent to garner the support of friends (Landauer, 2014). Indeed, an unconditional agreement of friendship is that one should be able to rely upon another for support and understanding in troubled times (boyd, 2006). If they do not receive the support they seek from such actions, the individual is likely to suffer from feelings of isolation, especially if they notice their friends providing support for other people (Park et al, 2016). One may have many friends who are easily accessible and social support for depression should be simpler, therefore the expectations of these friends in this scenario are higher. If friends don’t reciprocate in a satisfactory fashion, it can magnify perceived feelings of a lack of support. This is problematic for people who experience feelings of loneliness and have a perception that they have a lack of offline relationships are more inclined to compensate by dedicating themselves to connecting with others online (Skues, Williams and Wise, 2012).

          Facebook has provided new opportunities for people to exercise psychological behaviours designed to cause distress to others using subtle methods that often border on the passive-aggressive. One phenomenon which has arisen since Facebook’s inception is the act of ghosting, which can be defined as a lack of interaction with a person when compared to others, leaving them in a position where their s not acknowledged (Freedman, Powell, Le and Williams, 2018). A similar method used is ostracism, and whilst this shares similar traits to ghosting, it is a case of keeping one in their life but purposefully not including them in social scenarios and online interaction, which can cause severe emotional distress (Freedman, Powell, Le and Williams, 2018). People have reported that a lack of response to their posts and general interaction from friends on Facebook have led them to question the importance of their relationships and expressed difficulty in knowing how to confront them regarding the issue (Fox and Moreland, 2015). Another device used is vague booking, which can be aimed at an individual by somebody posting dialogue which is structured in a manner which does not address anybody directly (Child and Starcher, 2016). This is often a means of criticising friends without being confrontational, and several people may be roped into thinking that it refers to them, potentially affecting several people simultaneously. A significant characteristic of online communication is that it lacks a narrative tone and visual cues that would be more discernible to our understanding in an offline scenario (Keil and Johnson, 2002). Ergo a post from a friend from either their Facebook page or a comment on another page may be susceptible to being taken out of context, increasing animosity and potentially providing accelerant to an argument that may otherwise never occur.

          A vital component of any friendship is trust, and this is fostered by copious interaction, shared experiences and mutual bonds. When people present themselves on Facebook, they often construct an identity that can be an idealistic side of themselves that they wish the world to see (Kaliarnta, 2016). Young adults especially are in a phase of self-discovery during this tenure of their life and can fall into a habit of constructing an identity online that may not necessarily be an accurate depiction of them as a person or tell the whole story (Kaliarnta, 2016). When considering a scenario where somebody established a friendship offline to the extent that they become familiar with elements of their personality, witnessing an online version of the same person may skew how they view their relationship, and the trust component can suffer. They may also witness their friend giving an account of events or information on Facebook that they know for a fact are untrue or altered (McFall, 2012) which can lead to questions of the nature of the friendships online if they do not truly know or trust the person (Kaliarnta, 2016). One may also find that the friends they thought they knew so well possessed traits and characteristics stemming from their online persona which may not have been recognised in previous encounters (Skues, Williams and Wise, 2012). Narcissism and even arrogance displayed by friends can also stem from a need for people to present themselves in a positive light and disclose the illusion of a perfect existence (Horvath and Morf, 2010). They may also have struck up a friendship with somebody from a social circle, only to find upon connecting on Facebook, they openly displayed political views and stances that contravenes their own and the difference in opinion renders the friendship untenable (Kaliarnta, 2016). This shows that Facebook can reveal that people may not only know enough about those they considered their friends but also discover parts of their personality that only became apparent online.

          Through these examples, no matter how entrenched Facebook becomes in the everyday lives of us all, it is not a healthy substitute for connecting with friends offline. Online communication continues to possess a level of ambiguity and complexity that cannot be eradicated, meaning that friendships are stronger when communication is conducted person to person. Unrest between friends has the potential to escalate very quickly with the implications not considered, and the psychological tactics with which people can use on Facebook combined with other web platforms enables this. Individuals suffering from depression would be better served without constant Facebook use, as it can act as a deterrent from the emotional and psychological help they may need. Perhaps most troubling of all though is that one cannot be sure that the people they consider their friends are accurate versions of themselves on Facebook, and one is depriving themselves of rewarding experiences with others if they restricted themselves to online interaction. There are limitations on prior research focusing solely on the problematic elements discussed here and further analysis on young adults is needed.

 

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13 thoughts on “The anti-social network: Facebook has negative implications on the friendships of young adults

  1. Hi Joel.
    I found your article to be quite captivating, particularly when you talked about the turning point of the century in communication, namely “Facebook”. I also agree that Facebook has expedited the way people communicate, from sharing photos and expressing their feelings. People, as you said, find comfort when interacting with others, be it family or a colleague from work. Some people, however, still exploit Facebook to disguise and fake their identities. In terms of causing depression, yes I would say depression is becoming increasingly associated with many social networking websites and it is perhaps due to individuals being isolated from their social network.
    Great article overall!
    – Ali

  2. Hi Joel, your paper brings to light the issues of lack of privacy on social media, not just from predators, but from within our own Friends lists, especially in the cases where the online and offline converge, and real life relationships are also Facebook friends. I feel that there is an empathy-disconnect on social media compared to real life discourse, don’t you? It seems too easy to be inconsiderate or judgmental, and hyper-reactive on social media as opposed to face-to-face dynamics.

    The implications of actions and reactions on real life relationships may not be adequately considered, possibly more so amongst youth with less life and relationship experience, this being the focal demograph of your paper. Steinkuhler & Williams (2006) describe strong ties that provide emotional support as social superglue, and weak ties which are more tentative, as social lubricant. Humans are capable of a limited number of strong ties, but can manage a much larger base of weak ties which require less input. Because it is easy to develop so many connections online, I wonder if young people commonly mistake these weak ties for something more substantial or valuable and unfortunately sometimes sacrifice real world relationships which represent potentially stronger ties.

    You express and substantiate your thesis well, Joel, illuminating how Facebook can be destructive to friendships and subsequently the psychological health of young users. I enjoyed your paper. Alice.

    Reference:
    Steinkuhler, C. & Williams, D. (2006). Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as “third places”. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 11(4), article 1. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00300.x/full

  3. Hi Joel,

    Great article! I’m really reminded here why facebook sucks with actual reasoning to back up the claim. You certainly bring up some valid points and I’m reminded why I only really sit on facebook as a ghost. I joined to connect with family and to this date they, and one close overseas friend, are the only people I talk to on Messenger. Other friends I see what they are doing online and then don’t have a reason to catch up with them in person, even though I would like to sometime.

    Facebook, in my opinion, is sort of where friendships come to stall. Once you’re on facebook there is no need to connect offline. So little effort is required to keep up appearances. You raise quite a few good points that are backed up by examples of why facebook has negative effects on friendships, but at the same time, though, many people still flock to the site. So somewhere there must be good points about it.

  4. Thanks Ali, Alice and Peter for reading my article and responding. I was inspired to tackle the subject matter of my paper to try and make sense of some of my own experiences and those of my loved ones as well as what I have observed of friends, particularly on Facebook. I have witnessed friends falling out and engaging in nasty arguments which escalated from a seemingly harmless exchange. I found during my research there was a lack of research into these issues considering how copious they are in existence. More research had been conducted on the positive outcomes of online social networking and I concede that there is a strong argument for that. My thought process on the matter is favouring the notion that the individual’s personal qualities are really at the heart of how they best conduct themselves socially and research will never adequately show the best practice.

    I do agree there is an empathy-disconnect online. One may disclose they are struggling or going through a bad time, and there seems to be more an acceptance now that 20 people responding with a kind message is the right way of providing support. Egan, Koff, and Moreno (2013) discussed results of research which revealed that people often thought that friends who were disclosing negative emotions were being melodramatic and seeking attention and that they also felt uncomfortable approaching those with which they had weaker ties who engaged in this.

    In response to your comment regarding people still flocking to it Peter, I’m as guilty as the next person, often without even thinking about it. I have thought about the arguments against the merits of friendships online and concluded that if people are aware of the potential impact they can have on friendships, they are best equipped to handle them.

    Koc, M., & Gulyagci, S. (2013). Facebook Addiction Amongst Turkish College Students: The Role of Psychological Health, Demographic, and Usage Characteristics. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 16(4), 279-284. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0249.

    1. Hi Joel, thanks for responding.

      Getting back to the empathy-disconnect online, I feel that people mind their manners much more in face-to-face public situations. The whole in-person experience is just so much more visceral and imposing.

      Communicating online from the safety of our own private spaces, there just does not seem to be the same feeling of immediate threat or scrutiny that prevails in public physical spaces. However, as soon as we engage online that private space is no longer private, but public, and there are consequences and implications for unacceptable anti-social actions in the cybersphere, as you clearly demonstrate in your paper. Maybe there is a general disconnect related to the complexities of private/public and physical/virtual that makes people forget about edit mode. Thanks again for an informative paper. It’s been a great conference and learning opportunity. Alice.

  5. Hi Joel, I really enjoyed reading and considering the perspective that you have presented in your paper.

    It can certainly be difficult to sometimes determine who is and who isn’t actually a friend on Facebook and what is expected of a friend with regards to their online conduct and actions. It would be interesting if there could be a study into how Facebook users change their attitudes and online actions over time, as they become more familiar with the mechanisms within Facebook such as privacy settings, use of the private messaging service and other preferences.

    Your indication that some friends can feel a “lack of support” if their online communications are not being reciprocated in a like manner does raise concerns about the possible emotional toxicity of the disgruntled friend. I’m sure there have been many who have already experienced the attention seeking Facebook friend. Normally these types of friends can be identified through the quantity of posts being regularly made, whether it’s about recent activities, events or more personal issues such as health and appearance, where they endeavour to seek the sympathy of friends. Interestingly, some attention seekers have even identified the difference between automatic posts, such as changing a profile photo, and intentional posts, taking advantage of these to reach out and get attention without making look like they were deliberately saying “look at me”, whereas this was indeed their intention (Bohn, Buchta, Hornik and Mair, 2014).

    The different strategies being used to attack people online is fascinating, combined with the thought that they have been used so much that each method even has been assigned a name. I wonder, though, how did these young people learn to manage and utilise them so quickly in the first place? Many of these tactics of psychological combat can take professionals years to master, and yet, a 14 year-old seems to become an expert in a very short period of time. I find that scary.

    Thank you for a very interesting read.

    Reference:

    Bohn, A., Buchta, C., Hornik, K., & Mair, P. (2014). Making friends and communicating on Facebook: Implications for the access to social capital. Social Networks, 37, 29-41. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378873313001020

    1. Hello RMarkham and thanks for reading. I concur regarding further research into this subject, especially since the landscape of social networks is ever changing. For example, I have heard a few of my friends say recently that younger people have started using Instagram and that Facebook has become a platform for older generations. This may indicate that research on the matter becomes outdated quickly. That’s an excellent point drawn from Bohn et al and you’ve perfectly explained the subtle attention seeking devices used. I’ve witnessed people use these for the past decade on Facebook and on some occasions, it feels like some are attention starved. But I have been careful to not treat the situation lightly as some are in genuine need of support. Perhaps teenagers have mastered these combat techniques because some of them are born of online communication? Many of them have taken on a life of their own online and are easier to adopt.

  6. I really enjoyed in reading your conference paper Joel, as I do as well believe Facebook has the ability to create negative relationships. Even though you aren’t notified if people have deleted you and there is the risk of them finding out at a later stage as you mentioned on profiles or friends list. However, I remember back at in the day we would look at how many friends we had, 300 then 400, I look at my profile now and I have over 800 which is a completely false, i do not have 800 genuine friends! but I’ve travelled and lived in many cities and with this you naturally expand your network.

    When do you think the end point is to accepting or deleting friends without hurting any feelings? Are we just going to continue adding friends in our lives with very new job or new city?

    We can’t help but keep expanding our network but I do believe we do need to tidy up the list and only include friends we want to interact with or that we are genuinely interested in keeping in contact with.

    1. Thank you for reading Alexandra. I would have like to have explored the topic of deleting friends more broadly as I believe it has more of an impact than is often discussed. I personally do not believe in deleting somebody as a friend unless they have done something to deserve it, but I do understand why others may do so. I have noticed that I have had people delete me from their friend list who I had seen for a while or people from my past, and so it’s hard to feel offended considering some prefer to keep an intimate friendship group.

  7. Hi Joel,
    Really enjoyed reading your conference paper, it was fascinating to learn more about how Facebook promotes negativity and the exploitation in social media in general. Before the social media boom we use to talk to each other, listen, argue and get on with life… nowadays I believe social media is so embedded that every single action we make can be judged, will be judged and potentially has consequences to affect personal or professional life. My paper focused on LinkedIn and impression management and I can see certain indirect overlaps with your paper. LinkedIn can be exploited by providing false profile information which can cause potential negative career effects. Maybe in the near future social media might end up being a toxic and “fake news” desert of information.
    Chris.

    1. Hi Chris, thank you for reading. I personally find impression management is an element all of its own in social discourse online to the point where I put effort into analysing how I present myself before interacting. Particularly if anything I say can be taken out of context, a joke that may seem harmful or sarcasm that doesn’t register. I do wonder sometimes if I have become so careful that I am no longer being the dry witted and relaxed individual that my friends know of me offline. I did read your paper and can certainly apply similar principles to professional networks, especially since people may be trying to establish career relationships. I am beginning to view Facebook as a sea of useless information that is nigh impossible to filter to my own tastes, so keeping in touch with friends is fast becoming my only need for it.

  8. Hi Joel,

    Great paper, this really struck a chord with me. Although I have a Facebook account, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with. I like the idea of being able to keep my friends updated on what I’m doing (they all live interstate) and checking in on what they’re doing – I’ve found it has sort of trivialised relationships a bit. My close mates will always be my close mates – I don’t think strong connections like those alter that much when crossing from online to the offline world.

    But I do think we rely on Facebook to maintain relationships with acquaintances – Facebook has made that aspect really easy to stay in touch with people we probably wouldn’t make much effort to see face to face. Pearson (2009) claims that maintaining weaker connections is actually an important part of a network as a whole – but one aspect I don’t like so much about that is that Facebook has kind of stopped being about enabling genuine exchanges with good friends and more about building a network of people you wouldn’t have much to do with in day to day life.

    Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a stage: The performance of identity in online social networks. First Monday. 14(3). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2162/2127

    1. Hello Jarrod, thank you for reading. I am pleased you enjoyed it and was able to identify with the arguments. My paper was skewed towards my own bias views on the negative aspects of social networking and I discovered that most research did not back many of my views up. There have been instances over time where Facebook has helped me strengthen friendships and in some cases, been the sole reason for having had established them. My partner and I befriended somebody from Germany who ended up moving here, and we now regularly get together. However, it does feel as though Facebook has had a hand in weakening ties I once considered strong. Or perhaps I perceive these as having been weakened because I have come to rely on Facebook for communication and my friends aren’t always there to respond? I believe having a large network is beneficial in some ways, as you never know who out there might be the one who can help you with advice or emerge as somebody who provides support.

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