Another study linking the largest social network (we are referring to Facebook, of course) with undesirable consequences on the mental health of its users. From time to time we have read about depression, low self-esteem, and even jealousy.
Today, a new study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology finds that not only do Facebook and depressive symptoms go hand in hand, but also that the phenomenon of social comparison is causing a rift among users of the social network. 
In the new study from the University of Houston, researchers asked several Facebook members how much time they spent on the site, how likely they were to make social comparisons, and how often they experienced depressive symptoms. It turned out that people who used Facebook more than others tended to have more depressive symptoms.
"This doesn't mean that Facebook causes depression, but that depressive feelings and spending a lot of time on Facebook comparing ourselves to others tend to go hand in hand," said study author and doctoral candidate Mai-Ly Steers.
The second part of the study went a little deeper. The social comparison research found that: those who tend to compare themselves to people they consider better feel worse than those who compare themselves to people they consider inferior to them.
Overall, the research showed that people who spent more time on Facebook not only had more depressive symptoms, but also that social comparison – in any direction – was a mediator for depressive symptoms.
“Our study is the first of its kind to identify the underlying mechanism between this depression and social comparison,” Mai-Ly Steers tells Forbes.
Then should we delete our Facebook? It's not strictly necessary, but it certainly doesn't hurt to limit it. Mai-Ly Steers says that, as we've seen time and time again, social networks aren't purely social, and that they can actually be very anti-social.
