People tend to not put that much thought into Facebook and its negative effects on happiness it is just part of their daily lives. In 2020, there were 2.7 billion active users on Facebook, and I wonder how many of those people have thought about the effects it has on happiness. I believe Facebook can have a negative impact on the pursuit of happiness because it can disconnect people from real-life interactions, consume valuable time, and lead to social comparison.
People's addiction to Facebook and the need to check it takes people out of the moment without even realizing It. I am very guilty of this and try to check myself, but I often end up consuming on Facebook when I should be interacting with my daughter, and family, or at least doing something productive. Technology has changed the way people interact with everything, in “There Is No App For Happiness” Max Storm pointed out “The constant glancing into our smartphone to see if anyone has pinged us, while a friend is sitting across the table speaking to us, are indicators that we are addicted to something that is making us less considerate and more alienated. “. People feel the need to be in touch and share what they are doing on Facebook constantly because people feel like we need to project ourselves in a certain way and keep up that “image” on Facebook rather than real life. When people start projecting an image on Facebook, they do not want people to see them out of that light usually, so people avoid real interactions to keep up with it, disconnecting themselves from real life. When people are disconnected from real-life interactions, it stunts growth in communication and meaningful relationships. Therefore, when people lack in these areas it interferes with the pursuit of happiness.
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Facebook also consumes our time, it affects our ability to do other things and tends to other parts of our life including health, relationships, and culture. The moment people pick up the phone they get sucked in by notifications from Facebook informing people whose birthday it is, who uploaded a new picture, and even a couple of messages soon all of a sudden you look up and have been scrolling for an hour. In “There Is No App For Happiness” Max Storm stated “Time is not only money, but it is also much more than that; it is the minutes and seconds of our mortal life. Your time is the finite resource from which you experience this world — everyone, everything, and especially that which you are devoted to and live for.” What I believe he is trying to say by that statement is what we invest our time in ultimately contributes to our pursuit of happiness. If we are too busy spending time on the wrong things that do not provide people with the basics or help improve our lives, then we are delaying/harming our happiness. We cannot get back time, so we need to use what little time we have wisely, and mindlessly scrolling is only taking away from actual things that deserve our time.
While the social comparison is natural, I feel that with Facebook people see it more as a daily competition between people they connect with. Social comparison is basically comparing life choices, abilities, and traits to others typically in our peer groups or people whom we are similar to. This has a negative effect on the pursuit of happiness because it damages our self-image by constantly comparing ourselves to our peers and their accomplishments and abilities. We feel our own accomplishments and abilities are no longer enough because we see someone a little further in life than us on Facebook and we feel like we should be there by now also. When people see other people doing better in life, it makes them feel behind and sad like they should have done something else and then they would be in equal situations which is usually never the case. People tend to only post their successes, good deeds, and material things; they create this image of themselves that they wish to portray to people on social media, especially Facebook. People tend to forget that people are doing the same thing as they are trying to do; portray an image. The image rarely includes the downfalls and depressing parts of a person’s life which most people understandably want private. Comparing ourselves to others when we do not see every detail and thing, they went through just is not fair to ourselves. We need to remember to focus on our own journey and successes and be proud of those to stay in the pursuit of happiness.
All in all, I believe Facebook can have negative effects on the pursuit of happiness. While a lot of people can argue the reasons why Facebook helps them in the pursuit of happiness, I think disconnection, consumption of time, and social comparisons are something to consider when using Facebook, so it won’t be detrimental to the user's happiness.
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