Next time you do that ‘sigh and eye-roll’ when your former college classmate or colleague updates their Facebook with yet another cringe-worthy status update, pause: they’re just lonely!
The sad—although not entirely surprising—news is the result of a study carried out by researchers at Charles Sturt University in New South Wales, Australia for the July isse of Computers in Human Behaviour journal.
The Facebook activity of 600 women was observed for the study, and of the users that described themselves as lonely, over 79% shared things like their favourite books and films, compared with 65% of users who do not consider themselves to be lonely.
Also, 98% of the lonely ones shared stuff publicly i.e. not just with their FB friends, such as their relationship status, home address and other type of contact information.
Associate professor Yeslam Al-Saggaf says this makes sense because lonely people want to it easy for people to contact them, in order to feel less lonely. Er, that’s a bit dangerous.
The Market Watch story also mentions a 2012 report by Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, who concluded that people who most often ‘like’ stuff on their Facebook timeline are more likely to show ‘mania’ and ‘compulsivity’ IRL.
Rosen says that Facebook gives intense FOMO, which usually prompts people to want to show their best selves ‘and gain admiration through ‘likes’ and postings.’
Yeah, we kind of figured as much.
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.