Socially unacceptable?
Popular Facebook users with lots of ‘friends' are more likely to be stressed out by the network than less popular people, according to recent research.
Psychologists have claimed that a small number of users of the social network are struck by ‘considerable Facebook anxiety,' the Press Association reported.
The research conducted by Edinburgh Napier University, reportedly found that one in ten people surveyed said that Facebook made them feel ‘anxious', while almost a third of subjects admitted that rejecting friend requests made them feel guilty.
Researchers questioned 200 students about the site in focus groups, face to face interviews and an online survey of 175 people.
Leader of the survey, Dr Kathy Charles, reportedly said: "The results threw up a number of paradoxes. For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits. And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed."
Although the scientists can only speculate about why this might be the case, Charles apparently reckons it could be because some users feel huge pressure to constantly share details of their lives via updates to a large number of people.
She reportedly elaborated: "It's like being a mini news channel about yourself. The more people you have the more you feel there is an audience there. You are almost a mini celebrity and the bigger the audience the more pressure you feel to produce something about yourself."
Approximately 1 in 10 of the respondents reportedly admitted they do not like getting friends requests, while almost 2 thirds confessed to delaying their replies to such requests.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study apparently found that an ‘overwhelming majority' of students questioned simply said the best thing about the social network was ‘keeping in touch'.
Charles reportedly said that a lot of students said they were worried about ditching their Facebook profile in case they missed out on important social news or gatherings as well as offending their ‘friends'.
"Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good," she reportedly added.
