So I wanna test some theories...
Basically, in a recent class of mine, psych 280, the professor mentioned one of his studies. In brief, that study indicated that persons surveyed who used Facebook frequently had a relatively high dissatisfaction of life. This stuck with me. There is also strong evidence that suggests a person's satisfaction of life is affected by the comparisons they make. Specifically, by comparing your success to more successful person, you'll survey as having higher dissatsifaction then if you compare your success to persons less successful. Armed with this information, I'm planning on starting an experiment. as follows
Hypothesis: Because Facebook promotes high social monitoring in it's users there is a disproportionate representation of 'positive' status updates on Facebook. This results in frequent users' having a relatively low satisfaction of life.
Thesis: Increasing the frequency of 'negative' or depressive status updates should correlate positively to satisfaction of life in Facebook friends relative to the frequency of Facebook use. Therefore, if all my future status updates of my Facebook profile reflect negative events, the attitudes of Facebook friends should trend upwards in satisfaction of life.
However, I'm lost in coming up with an method to accurately measure the feelings and attitudes pre-experiment and post-experiment of Facebook friends. First thought is by survey, but I lack much of the authority required to get reliable survey results from people (at lest so i think). The alternative is to subjectively record the number and rate the degree of positive/negative posts on Facebook. the obvious problem is that I start with the assumption that people, more often then otherwise, display themselves in a positive light on Facebook. So that Facebook is an inaccurate reflection of actual feelings/attitudes. Maybe I could ask a select group of people to engage reflectively each week and record the number of times and duration they use Facebook and their mood at those times and weigh that against the number and popularity and mood of posts I record daily on Facebook.
...this all seems like something I should ask the Psych department at ISU about.
anyway, stay well, love, Marcus Miranti
Basically, in a recent class of mine, psych 280, the professor mentioned one of his studies. In brief, that study indicated that persons surveyed who used Facebook frequently had a relatively high dissatisfaction of life. This stuck with me. There is also strong evidence that suggests a person's satisfaction of life is affected by the comparisons they make. Specifically, by comparing your success to more successful person, you'll survey as having higher dissatsifaction then if you compare your success to persons less successful. Armed with this information, I'm planning on starting an experiment. as follows
Hypothesis: Because Facebook promotes high social monitoring in it's users there is a disproportionate representation of 'positive' status updates on Facebook. This results in frequent users' having a relatively low satisfaction of life.
Thesis: Increasing the frequency of 'negative' or depressive status updates should correlate positively to satisfaction of life in Facebook friends relative to the frequency of Facebook use. Therefore, if all my future status updates of my Facebook profile reflect negative events, the attitudes of Facebook friends should trend upwards in satisfaction of life.
However, I'm lost in coming up with an method to accurately measure the feelings and attitudes pre-experiment and post-experiment of Facebook friends. First thought is by survey, but I lack much of the authority required to get reliable survey results from people (at lest so i think). The alternative is to subjectively record the number and rate the degree of positive/negative posts on Facebook. the obvious problem is that I start with the assumption that people, more often then otherwise, display themselves in a positive light on Facebook. So that Facebook is an inaccurate reflection of actual feelings/attitudes. Maybe I could ask a select group of people to engage reflectively each week and record the number of times and duration they use Facebook and their mood at those times and weigh that against the number and popularity and mood of posts I record daily on Facebook.
...this all seems like something I should ask the Psych department at ISU about.
anyway, stay well, love, Marcus Miranti
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