The benefits of Facebook, the fastest growing social network which is going to go IPO any day now, are pretty obvious. It lets you connect with family, friends and relatives, you can post anything on your wall (no matter how insignificant I must add) and it’s a great way for businesses to make their products known.  But after I read an email that was forwarded to me about a couple in Tennessee, who because they ‘defriended’ a woman on Facebook, were murdered in their home by the jilted woman’s father and another man, I did a little bit of snooping around on the web and came across the following studies on the disadvantages of Facebook that I found to be interesting:

 

1- A study conducted by Ohio State University found that FB users had GPAs a full grade lower than non-users in college. Typically FB users had GPA’s between 3.0 and 3.5 while non-users had GPA’s between 3.5 and 4.0. Also, users in the study said they averaged one to five hours a week studying, while non-users averaged 11-15 hours per week.

 

 

2- A University of Haifa study found that the more time adolescent girls spend in front of Facebook, the more their chances of developing a negative body image and various eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia, physical dissatisfaction and negative approaches to eating.

 

 

3- A University of Houston study found a link between time spent on FB and depressive symptoms especially in young men. "It appears as if males, when they socially compare themselves on Facebook, they tend to experience depression systems," said study researcher and University of Houston doctoral student Mai-Ly Nguyen.

 

4- One study found that when you add a new friend on FB you get happy but as you add more and more friends you start to compare your life with theirs (often distorted) and you feel like a loser. While adding a friend on the social networking site can make people feel cheery and connected, having a lot of friends is associated with feeling worse about one's own life. For example with status updates, most of us know that Facebook friends tend to craft their updates and wall memos in a way that makes their lives seem more exciting and in the best light but when it comes down to actually using the site and reading other people’s status updates it still makes Facebookers feel worse.

 

 I agree, with over 600 million Facebook users, the story about the Tennessee murder is a pretty rare occurrence so the takeaway of all this is to not go and throw out your Facebook account because Facebook does have benefits but “you have to be careful,” said University of Houston psychologist Linda Acitelli. Acitelli thinks parents should monitor the amount of time their teenage kids spend on Facebook. And I guess, like with every other thing in life, moderation is key.

 

 

Sources: researchnews.osu.edu

                Psychcentral.com

            Vitals.msnbc.msn.com