Unfair Comparisons
Thanks to social media, the distance between friends is smaller than ever. But does that make us happier? Not necessarily. A recent study has found spending too much time comparing your life with the seemingly perfect lives of your friends on social media can result in depressive symptoms.
We've all done it —- browsing through our WeChat friends' updates while feeling that green-eyed monster holding its head in our minds: Are their homes bigger and more tasteful? Are their vacations more expensive and exciting? Are their careers more successful and rewarding?
Comparison is the thief of joy. The more time you spend on social media, the more likely it is for you to feel depressive symptoms, according to a new study out of University of Houston. The study, led by Mai-Ly Steers, examines the potential impact online social comparison can have on a person's mental health.
"The underlying mechanism is social comparison," Steers said. "The reason why you feel these feelings is that you tend to socially compare yourself with your friends."
This social comparison theory was popularized by US psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s. According to an article in The Atlantic 
Festinger argued that people have born tendencies to track their progress and measure their self-worth by comparing themselves with other people. That social comparison leads to feelings of insignificance and insecurity. Research has since found that making social comparisons, especially upward comparisons (to people we think above us for whatever reason), are associated with negative health outcomes like depressive symptoms and decreased self-esteem.
"You can't really control the strong desire to compare because you never know what your friends are going to post. In addition, most of our friends tend to post about the good things that occur in their lives, while leaving out the bad. If we're comparing ourselves with our friends'' sharable highlights', this may lead us to think their lives are better than they actually are, and thus make us feel worse about our own lives."
So if you are the jealous type, maybe think about signing off of your WeChat for a while. Your well-being may depend on it.
