Facebook makes people sad

A 2013 study found "The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt" and "Interacting with other people “directly” did not predict these negative outcomes." The study concludes with a challenge of the network's status as a social platform:

"In fact, direct social network interactions led people to feel better over time. This suggests that Facebook use may constitute a unique form of social network interaction that predicts impoverished well-being."

Facebook's mission statement:

Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

I asked a person that frequents the Facebook website and they were not the least surprised by this study. They immediately drew the parallel conclusions as alluded to in the study; Facebook causes users to compare themselves against the lives of others and since others only post the best remarks about their lives this can cause users to feel relatively worse about themselves.