IQ: Study Finds Facebook "Friends" Cause Angst

The more “friends” people have on Facebook, the more likely they are to be stressed out and anxious, according to a new study by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland.

The study of university students, led by Dr. Kathy Charles, concluded that for many Facebook users, the negative effects of using the site outweighed the benefits it offers in terms of staying in touch with friends and family.

Researchers found that while there is a great amount of peer pressure to be on Facebook, there also is a lot of ambivalence among users about its benefits. The study only focused on Facebook and did not include other popular social media sites. Facebook Inc. has more than 500 million users worldwide.

“Our data also suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety, with only very modest or tenuous rewards,” Charles said in the study. “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.”

Part of the survey included focus groups in person, while an online survey of students' attitudes toward Facebook made up part of the study.

Of those surveyed online:

• 12% of respondents said Facebook made them feel anxious. Of these, respondents had an average of 117 “friends” each. The remaining 88 percent, who said Facebook did not make them feel anxious, had an average of 75 “friends” each.
• 63% admitted disliking receiving friend requests. said rejecting friend requests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort. delayed replying to friend requests.
• 32% said rejecting friend rquests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort.
• 10% admitted disliking receiving friend requests.

“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,” Charles said.