Teen Talk

When classmates were applying to college, one of my friends joked that, when naming her activities on the Common Application, she wanted to list “Facebook stalking.†Although kidding, she spent almost as much time following people’s lives on Facebook as she did playing tennis or working on Yearbook. But when I repeated her comment to another friend, I didn’t get the laugh I expected. Instead my classmate responded, “Yeah, she and everyone else I know.â€
Most teenagers are guilty of this. We spent far too much time sifting through peers’ photos and wallposts. In fact, this indulgence is the cause of a new ailment common among teens called “Facebook depression.†The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that some teens suffer from lower self-esteem after comparing their lives and the seemingly more exciting lives of other teens represented online.
Facebook depression, a term now acknowledged by the American Academy of Pediatrics, is the notion that Facebook users’ self-esteem is hurt due to activity they see on Facebook. This can derive either from logging onto Facebook and being disappointed by the lack of notifications or from seeing what other people are doing.
I can remember so many spring breaks when it seemed like all my friends were out of town. It was one thing knowing that no one was available to hang out, but it was quite another to be able to see the posh hotels my friends were staying at and the Caribbean beaches where my friends were frolicking.
Based on what teens see on their friends’ Facebook photo albums, they come to the inevitable conclusion that their friends lead far more exciting lives. The unavoidable Facebook comparisons often generate competition, unnecessary jealousy, and resentment. Girls see parties they weren’t invited to and boyfriends they don’t have.
A younger friend recently admitted to me that she was at a classmate’s sweet sixteen and met someone really nice from another school whom she had previously hated. When I asked how she could have hated someone she had never even met, she looked at me as though that was the dumbest question she had ever heard. And after thinking about it, I guess I did sound pretty dumb. When it comes to Facebook stalking, there are no age limits.
My mother claims that when she was a teenager and would complain that her friends had better lives than she, my grandmother would contend that wasn’t true and tell her to count her blessings. When I whine that I wish I had my friends’ lives, my mother peers over my shoulder at my computer, scans my friends’ Facebook postings, and there’s no way around it. She has to agree that their lives do appear better than mine in some ways, but she insists that I have a cuter mom.