Social media started out as a way to stay in touch with our friends and share happy memories. However, the results of her recent research 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 become a vicious cycle. We want to enter our favorite social platforms για μοιραστούμε με όλες τις επαφές μας τα θετικά πράγματα που κάνουμε και τα οποία μας κάνουν να αισθανόμαστε καλά», σχολίασε ο Evgeny Chereshnev, επικεφαλής των Social Media της Kaspersky Lab. «Αλλά η πραγματικότητα είναι ότι ο καθένας κάνει το ίδιο πράγμα, έτσι όταν συνδεόμαστε στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, βομβαρδιζόμαστε με εικόνες και δημοσιεύσεις φίλων μας που διασκεδάζουν. Και φαίνεται σαν να απολαμβάνουν τη ζωή περισσότερο από εμάς. Είναι εύκολο να καταλάβει κανείς γιατί αυτό αφήνει στους ανθρώπους το αίσθημα της θλίψης και γιατί τόσοι πολλοί άνθρωποι έχουν σκεφτεί να εγκαταλείψουν εντελώς τα social media. Η δυσκολία έγκειται στο ότι οι άνθρωποι αισθάνονται παγιδευμένοι, επειδή τόσες πολλές από τις πολύτιμες αναμνήσεις τους είναι αποθηκευμένες στα social media και δεν θέλουν να χάσουν την access them to them".
To help people decide more freely whether they want to stay on social media or leave it without losing their digital memories, Kaspersky Lab is developing a new application, FFForget, which allows users to create copies security of all their memories from 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.
