The social media they started out as a way to stay in touch with our friends and share happy memories. However, the results of a recent survey by Kaspersky Lab show that social media is now making many people feel bad. The 'hunt' for likes plays a central role in this, with the majority of people feeling bad or upset when they don't get the number of likes they want for a post, and with 42% saying they feel jealous when their friends get more likes. Additionally, research shows that people feel jealous when they see their friends' seemingly happier lives on social media.
In a survey of 16.750 people from around the world, Kaspersky Lab identified users' feelings of frustration with social media. People often experience negative emotions when they have spent time on social media due to various events, which indirectly neutralizes its positive effects.
Social network users visit social media for positive reasons and feel good. Most people (65%) use social networks to stay in touch with friends and colleagues and see fun and funny posts (60%). People also devote a significant amount of time to creating digital profiles and feed it with all sorts of positive moments, noting the things that make them smile (61%), and informing their networks about the wonderful moments they spend duration of holidays and holidays (43%).
While it's no surprise that 72% of people are bothered by the advertisements that have become extremely intrusive and disrupt their online communications, the real reasons for their frustration are much deeper. Despite wanting to feel good about their social media interactions, when people see their friends' happy posts about vacations, hobbies, and parties, they're often left with the bitter feeling that other people are enjoying life more than they are. . For example, 59% felt unhappy when they saw friends' posts from a party they weren't invited to, while 45% revealed that their friends' happy vacation photos had a negative effect on them. Additionally, 37% also admitted that looking back on their old, happy posts can make them feel like their past was better than their current life.
Previous research has also shown people's frustration with social media, as 78% has admitted that it has considered withdrawing completely from social networks. The only thing that makes people stay on social media is the fear of losing their digital memories, such as photos and contacts with their friends. As keeping in touch with friends can be a difficult problem to solve, Kaspersky Lab is working hard to create a comprehensive solution that helps people store their digital memories.
"Our relationship with social media has evolved into a vicious circle. "We want to enter our favorite social platforms to share with all our contacts the positive things we do that make us feel good," he said. Evgeny Chereshnev, Head of Social Media at Kaspersky Lab. “But the reality is that everyone is doing the same thing, so when we log on to social media, we're bombarded with pictures and posts of our friends having fun. And it seems like they enjoy life more than we do. It's easy to see why this leaves people feeling sad and why so many people have considered quitting social media altogether. The difficulty is that people feel trapped because so many of their precious memories are stored on social media and they don't want to lose access to them."
Για να βοηθήσει τους ανθρώπους να αποφασίσουν πιο ελεύθερα αν επιθυμούν να παραμείνουν στα social media ή να αποχωρήσουν από αυτά χωρίς να χάσουν τις ψηφιακές τους αναμνήσεις, η Kaspersky Lab αναπτύσσει μία νέα εφαρμογή, το FFForget, το οποίο επιτρέπει στους χρήστες να δημιουργούν αντίγραφα security of all their memories of the social networks they use and keep them in a secure, encrypted "vault" This will make users free to leave any network whenever they wish without losing what belongs to them, i.e. their digital lives.
FFForget release is scheduled for 2017.