Maria Konnikova's Essay How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy

I grew up in a world where I was surrounded by technology. Growing up I received my first flip phone at the end of elementary school. I still remember the exact device, it was a T-Mobile Sidekick and I loved it. It was so cool to just flip it open and was the screen rotate upwards and reveal the keyboard. I remember spending hours playing the same game on my phone every day. There have been so many advancements in the different types of digital technology. For me, cell phones were the most impactful in my life. From the flip phones to smartphones, they were very beneficial and convenient. When I upgraded to a smartphone I loved it so much. Do not get me wrong the sidekick was amazing, but as time progressed technology made major advancements.

In Maria Konnikova’s essay, “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy,” she states that using social media platforms such as Facebook or even Snapchat creates a feeling of envy “Another group of researchers has suggested that envy, too, increases with Facebook use” (par. 4). I believe that I too am a culprit of doing this. Sometimes I would sit there and wonder why my life is not full of an interesting event to post on my story or to tag my friends in photos on Facebook. Most of the time I use Facebook not to post, but to endlessly scroll and look at memes. Maria Konnikova also states in “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy,” that people do tend to passively scroll through their news feeds more than they actively engaged with the content (par. 10). For as long as I have had my account I do not ever remember making a post and tagging people in them. I am often the lurker that is either tagged in pictures of just finding myself scrolling through my news feed. I often find myself scrolling for hours just seeing what there is on Facebook, and when I am bored I would just close Facebook and move onto something