Since it launched in 2004, Facebook has been working to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
This sounds great. But is it, actually?
Does connecting with everyone you’ve ever met ever on Facebook make you happy? Does sharing everything with them on Facebook make you jump out of your seat with joy? Probably not.
In fact, if the research is any indication, you may actually be finding Facebook and other social media sites aren’t so great for your mental health. Instead of feeling blissfully open and connected with your friends, you feel inadequate or maybe even a bit depressed.
Is social media making us sad because technology is inherently alienating? Is Facebook actually just evil?
The trouble it caused went like this.
In everyday life, we tend to have different sides of ourselves that come out in different contexts. For example, the way you are at work is probably different from the way you might be at a bar or at a church or temple.
Sociologist Erving Goffman used concepts of theatre to explain these different aspects of our identities, for example, front stage and back stage.
YOUR PERFECT SELF
The key to understanding social media depression lies in the social norm that has emerged around how we manage Facebook’s context collapse in a way that is acceptable in all contexts. That social norm is being your perfect self. And the consequence of that is we are all performing our perfect selves, thus all making each other feel depressed and inadequate.