Journalist and former English scholar, Dr Jacob Brogan, argues that Facebook’s focus on ‘liking’ activities makes it harder to reflect meaningfully on negative life experiences.

Dr Brogan has been sharing his experience of papillary thyroid cancer on his blog. When his work started being reshared on Facebook, Dr Brogan started self-censoring. He says:

‘Afraid of writing something that would be literally unlikable, I emphasized positive developments in my health or quoted passages from my writing that had nothing to do with sickness. Though I still felt what I felt, Facebook had changed the way I sought the attention of my loved ones, crowding out my negative thoughts in favor of cheerier ones.’

Dr Brogan links to research showing that social media companies manipulate users into feeling negative, while also making it less likely that we will share these feelings.

A Pew Research survey of 1,801 adults finds that people who use the internet and social media more frequently do not have higher levels of stress than other people. At the same time, the study finds that:

‘users who feel more stress are those whose use of digital tech is tied to higher levels of awareness of stressful events in others’ lives. This finding about “the cost of caring” adds to the evidence that stress is contagious.’

Dr Brogan notes that therapists have critiqued ‘the tyrannical culture of positivity‘:

‘It is true that some people dwell in cycles of negativity. But how do we know when we should or shouldn’t attempt to lift them from their sorrows? The key is learning how to listen. At times a person needs to endure a feeling, state, or mood in order to grow. What the person needs is compassion—a trusted other to listen while he or she endures his or her difficulties. Attempts to redirect the other toward positivity may be well intended, but may also lack compassion. Advocating a shift into a positive perspective may be received by the other as dismissive, even uncaring, depending on whether the listener is truly attuned to his or her friend’s needs. After all, how can you truly listen to someone if you’ve already decided what he or she should feel and how he or she should think?’

In an interview with Dr Brogan, psychotherapist Stephen L. Salter says that people hesitate experiences that may be perceived as negative. They want to avoid being a ‘burden other people’:

‘Some people are not sure how much of themselves they can actually be, how much I can take.’

Dr Brogan argues that withholding negative information on social media is a form of ‘anticipatory empathy’:

‘Facebook allows us to be public about our sorrows, but to be heard they must sound some joyous note… Here, silence transforms into a misguided form of care, an attempt to aid others when we most need to aid ourselves. The savvier we get to Facebook’s structures—to the mechanics of its algorithms and the best ways to collect likes—the more inclined we become to swallow our ugly feelings, thereby intensifying this unfortunate bind.’

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