“They look like they’re having fun…”

“That dress looks amazing on her…”

“He’s won another award?”

“Why doesn’t any of this happen to me?”

Facebook makes us lonely. The juxtaposition of snippets of real life and perusal of a virtual one isolates us.

People selectively tear pages

out of their lives and staple

them into their Facebook.

Collectively, it leaves the

viewer with a novel of life

highlights that disguise them

as day to day happenings.

Additionally, this swarm of joy from our “friends” puts a constant pressure on

us to be incredibly happy, and to be living incredible, exciting, amazing lives.

The maximum number of real relationships we can have at any time is around 150, and

yet people’s friends list regularly scale into the thousands.

The act of using Facebook itself is an antisocial one.

We scroll through our newsfeeds alone, not in groups.

We are seeing an active degradation of the quality of our relationships around us.

Facebook is now becoming the tool the loneliest among us use to futilely reach

out for connection.

An even worse byproduct is the lack of social education given to the new generations.

Growing up with Facebook initially isolates them and sets them up for a lifelong

attention addiction.

It’s not simply perusal that is causing this singularity, people who regularly

post are found to be some of the most alone people.

This plague of isolation is now

following us everywhere. In our

pockets, on our desks, the constant reminder

of what others are doing is always buzzing

in our ears.

Not only does Facebook isolate us from others but it begins to isolate us from ourselves.

We pick, choose, edit, and remix our online identities.

We morph them into whatever we think will be most accepted by our peers

rather than attempting to get to know ourselves and others better.

Facebook even spreads this loneliness past the confines of its URL.

Those absent from Facebook are seen as beyond weird and begin

to be excluded virtually and in reality.

“Staring at this screen is depressing me.”

“I bet my friends want to go out.”

“Click”