A 2011 study found that social media users exposed to pictures of “beautiful users” developed a more negative self-image than those who were shown less attractive profile pictures. Men who were shown profiles of high-career-status men judged their own pursuits as inadequate, compared to others who saw profiles of less successful men. By 2013, researchers found that Facebook use could predict negative shifts in both how their young subjects felt moment to moment as well as their overall life satisfaction. That year, German researchers found that the “astounding… wealth of social information” presented on Facebook produces “a basis for social comparison and envy on an unprecedented scale.” Their work demonstrated that “passive following” on Facebook exacerbates feelings of envy and decreases life satisfaction. More than 20 percent of all recent experiences of envy reported by the students in the research study had been triggered by Facebook exposure.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 1476