Social Media and Happiness Don’t Always Coexist

Do you find yourself unable to stop checking your Facebook account for updates or to see who liked or commented on your post? Well, in case you missed it, some of the pivotal players who helped create Facebook have had a temporary lapse of truth. What sort of truth? Let’s begin with Sean Parker, investor and former president of Facebook speaking at an event hosted by Axios in November. The billionaire Napster co-founder said, “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible? It was this mindset that led to the creation of features such as the “like” button that would give users “a little dopamine hit” to encourage them to upload more content. It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

In mid-November, I took a Facebook holiday. Without any post announcing my planned departure I What did I find? Within a day…