The popular wisdom is that browsing Facebook and seeing people in alluringly posed portraits living apparently perfect lives spreads a cloud of jealousy and envy over the rest of us. But a recent study by the Leibniz Knowledge Media Research Center in Germany shows just the opposite: positive posts tend to make readers happier.
The study looked at 194 Facebook users in Germany and compared them to the results of a study of 207 US users of the social media site.
Participants were asked to answer questions about the four most recent status updates they found in their timelines. How positive was the content? How close were they to the people with whom it was shared? What emotions did the post elicit?
The results showed that more people logged happiness than expressed envy or jealousy. Most people were happy for their Facebook friends.
A key role was the strength of the inter-personal relationship with the poster. The stronger the tie, the higher the level of "benign envy" - which is good - about a happy post.
By contrast, regular-style envy seemed to have no correlation with the strength of a relationship. Also, people who reported low self-esteem generally reported envy about other people's posts, regardless of the strength of their relationship.
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