In this photo illustration, a Facebook logo on a computer screen is seen through a magnifying glass held by a woman in Bern May 19, 2012.(Agencies)
Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.
A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.
The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.
"We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt University told the reporters.
"From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site," said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.
Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt's Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.
Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many "likes" or comments were made on photos and postings.
"Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize," the researchers said in the report "Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" released on Tuesday.
"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."
They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.
These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.
Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.
The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference on information systems in Germany in February.
The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.
The researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.
"From a provider's perspective, our findings signal that users frequently perceive Facebook as a stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability," the researchers concluded.
德国最新调查显示，Facebook上好友发布的度假、爱情生活、工作成就等信息会引发嫉妒心理，并由此让人感到痛苦和寂寞。
德国两所大学合作开展的这项调查发现，Facebook引发嫉妒心理的情况十分普遍，并成为前所未有的社会比较平台。全球最大的社交网站Facebook用户数量已经超过10亿。
研究人员发现，三分之一的人们在浏览Facebook后感觉心情更糟，对生活更加不满；而那些只是浏览却没有上传任何信息的人受到的负面影响最深。
柏林洪堡大学信息系统研究所研究员汉娜告诉记者：“我们发现很多人浏览Facebook后会产生嫉妒心理，这让他们感到孤独、沮丧或者气愤，人数之多让我们感到很惊讶。”
汉娜说：“根据我们的观察，有些受到负面影响的人会停止使用Facebook，或者至少减少使用时间。”汉娜还预测说，Facebook在某些市场可能会达到饱和。
来自德国柏林洪堡大学以及达姆施塔特工业大学的研究人员发现，假期照片是引起愤恨的最大诱因，超过半数的嫉妒心理来源于Facebook上的假期掠影。
社交互动是引起嫉妒心理的第二大常见原因，用户会比较自己和好友收到生日祝福的数量，以及照片和帖子获得多少“赞”或评论。
研究人员在周二发布的名为《Facebook引发嫉妒心理：用户生活满意度的潜在威胁》报告中指出：“被动浏览会让人产生反感，用户主要是在嫉妒别人的幸福生活、度假方式和社交活动。”
“研究表明，社交网络引发的嫉妒心理的蔓延和无所不在会降低用户的生活满意度。”
30多的人大多会嫉妒他人的家庭幸福，而女性大多会嫉妒别人的外貌。
调查发现，这种嫉妒心理会让某些用户在Facebook上夸大自己的成就,以更好地表现自己。
调查显示，男性大多会在Facebook网站上自我宣传，从而让人们知道自己的成就，而女性则注重表现自己的娇好的样貌和丰富的社交生活。
研究人员根据两项调查得出了上述结论，共有600人参与调查。研究结果将在于今年二月在德国举行的信息系统会议上公布。
第一项研究专注于由Facebook引发的嫉妒心理事件的规模、范围和性质；第二项研究则注重于这些嫉妒心理对Facebook使用以及用户的生活满意度带来的负面影响。
研究人员表示，虽然两项调查中的参与者都是德国人，但其结果仍具有国际意义，因为嫉妒心理是人类普遍存在的情绪，而且它可能会影响Facebook的使用。
研究人员总结道：“从供应商的角度来看，我们的研究结果表明，用户时常感觉Facebook氛围压抑，长期来看，这会危及这个社交平台的持续发展。”
ubiquitous: 普遍存在的，无所不在的