Does the use of social media, a tool designed to create closer connections between friends, breed envy instead? 

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech/stop-instagramming-your-perfect-life

Many of my friends have termed Facebook 'Boastbook' as they say that they only go on there to show what their children have been doing (only if their children have been doing exceptionally well of course). Similarly I load up pictures of my nights out and 'Instagram' my nice meals. I guess this is all some form of proof or affirmation that we are living life and showing other people that we are interesting and not boring. Although as we all know, posting too often probably suggests the opposite.

The difficulty we had when redesigning Blurtit is deciding which human traits we wanted to appeal to. We are keen for people to share knowledge and be helpful, but not to shout others down or make people feel silly or stupid for asking the question they have. It's also important that people do form a community, as without the sense of others listening and being appreciative, we would end up with an online version of lots of people in a room shouting about what they know, but with no one listening to each other.

Undoubtedly, this is how all online communities start, however, I fell Facebook especially has fallen foul to breeding jealousy and envy and has become more and more about showing a false side of your life. Overall it breeds attention seeking behaviour. Many people I know who get hundreds of 'likes' for posts, purposefully post such offensive content, it affects how you view them in real life, although I am yet to see this side of them in actuality.

As the article you refer to states 

"Let’s choose community. Let’s stop comparing. Let’s start connecting" 

and I completely agree with that philosophy, and really hope that is what we manage to achieve on Blurtit.

In general, I feel the narcissism of Facebook can be too time consuming and very addictive. Should you wish to monitor your time, try www.rescuetime.com. A friend of mine used it and after looking at the results, came off Facebook entirely!

Now you see there's an argument to be considered here. The real use of facebook is to connect with friends from your past, you know the old school days etc! But in reality it is used for the wrong reasons, with people sharing abusive and offensive content to each other and violating privacy laws, its all a bit hectic on there really!

When I was on facebook I noticed that having many friends was a big issue even if you didn't have a clue who most of them were! It seems rather silly to me, but we all know that we cannot expect people to use social networking in the correct manner. This was the whole purpose of it. We stalk people on twitter, we find out what they're doing, saying and if we find they speak inappropriately about the things we love and live (or about us) then we will confront these people on facebook and get our own back. Now thats when it gets unhealthy. Using social network sites to spark a feud, is this how intellectual our race has become? Is this how we were meant to be evolved to act like?

Thats why I left facebook, too many people adding you just to keep on eye on you, too many arguments would start on there, the many facebook bullying stories I've heard at my school , its ridiculous! I think it has something to do with the theory of 'Deindividuation', being part of a group and feeling anonymous and thus increasing your chance of aggressive and verbally abusive behaviour due to the thinking that you are faceless and unrecognisable.  I believe this because , lets assume perhaps somebody online (or on Facebook) decides to voice their opinion on something or someone they don't like, a lot of other people agree with this person and this makes them more likely to continue with their abuse. It makes them feel part of a group, it reduces guilt. In the same way a popular person on facebook will not be afraid to say what they want because if they have a lot of friends they are reassured that they will be fine and have people to stand up for them when needed. It makes them feel superior and faceless. Although they may have a picture of themself, they will still feel faceless because they are online and this reduces their self awareness. We wouldn't expect people to act like this in the real world now would we? Would any of these young people that abuse each other online , do it face to face in the real world? Its more unlikely, because then one is recognisable and more easy to be blamed and targeted for their own wrong doings.

Whilst on twitter it can be similar but because twitter does not have as many features as  facebook  , people are less likely to throw abuse around however this does not mean it doesn't happen. Because it does. There are many immature people in this world. Whilst I'm on twitter I realise because the main purpose of twitter is too connect and share what you are doing at the specific moment it makes it more user friendly! On facebook you update your status, talk about your feelings, and comments and likes are the main issue of abuse. However on twitter its just a simple 'What you are doing' type , and a way for groups and organisations to get together and spread what they love. Its much more business orientated too.

But abuse lies everywhere, its just a shame we have to resort to go online to hurt and abuse others. Remember the Riots in England? It also fuelled from online organisations. Again the result of deindividuation.

Thanks for reading!