Is Facebook making your life miserable?

Last week there was a fancy-dress party at our house that was a huge success, with a dozen kids and various riotous party games that were both hilarious and annoying in equal measure.

My husband, meanwhile, has been amusing, frustrating and, on occasion, sweetly romantic.

Myself? I’ve enjoyed a theatre outing, exquisite meal out and a couple of out-of-the-blue work triumphs.

It’s all the stuff of any standard Facebook newsfeed; the grit of real life, guaranteed to prompt great cyber-conversations that would pull in friends from various parts of my life.

Now our geyser’s bust and I’m sure there’ll be oodles of material about fighting over pans of hot water to update about, too.

Only, where once my personal kitchen-sink dramas would have been crafted into a steady stream of pithy status updates, today, unless you have seen me recently, you won’t know anything about what’s been going on in my life.

I am, you see, part of an increasing number of people who are pulling the plug on their cyber-selves and, it seems, are happier for it.

According to research published this week by the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, giving up Facebook for just seven days boosts happiness and reduces feelings of anger and loneliness.

The report suggests that Facebook distorts our perception of reality – we buy in to the oh-so-fabulous commentary on other people’s lives to such an extent that we can’t help but evaluate our own less-than-perfect lives as inadequate.

I used to love Facebook but, almost a year ago, the crappiness of real life pulled me away when our youngest daughter, then aged nine, was taken ill with a painful form of inflammatory disease and we had a protracted time getting a diagnosis.

For much of the last year, posting on Facebook was the last thing on my mind.

Now she’s on the mend and life is enjoyable again, so in the summer I came back to my online social life – but found myself on the outside looking in. Instead of throwing myself back into the Facebook frenzy, I sat back. I wasn’t inclined to go back because I realised that, away from Facebook, I felt happier.

Before my daughter’s illness, I was pretty much addicted to Facebook: I would post up to four times a day, sometimes more. It was the last thing I checked at night and the first place I turned to upon waking. I’d be engaging in online conversations via the site in parallel to the rest of my life.

Today, those hours are filled with socialising with friends face to face, organising my life and increasing my work output.

I also feel more fulfilled professionally, and at home I am more engaged with the things in front of me and less distracted by those far away.

But while all of this does make me feel more engaged in the world, I disagree with anyone who says that Facebook isn’t real life. For me, it is very real, almost too real, and that is one of the things about it that I now realise was making me feel bad.

The scattergun approach to making friends on Facebook meant that I was suddenly sharing relative intimacies with people whom I’d normally exchange only vague pleasantries with in passing.

But that’s not to say I’m off Facebook altogether.

The site has become such an intrinsic part of the fabric of our lives that to walk away from it would be to cut myself off from great people who have interesting things to say. It’s an enormous font of knowledge and opinion that I’d hate to lose access to. But I have to mind my work, life and social media balance. Being on the outside looking in has become my happy place. — The Daily Telegraph

Six rules for ‘Happy Facebooking’

lDelete Facebook from your phone – or switch off notifications. Otherwise, every time your mobile pings, you’ll find your way to see who’s posted.

lDedicate half an hour once or twice a week to catching up.

lDon’t post comments or engage in debates. Even the odd ‘Like’ here, and post there, will end one way – you, back on Facebook, all day, every day.

lDon’t tell people that you’re sick of Facebook. You’ll come across as smug and will end up with half your friends list deleting you anyway.

lInstead of brutally culling people from your friends list simply go into your settings and hide posts from anyone who consistently posts updates that make you feel irritated or angry.

lFacebook misery is often caused by feelings of jealousy. Is it Facebook making you unhappy or your own internal setting that hankers over what others have? Your issue may be with yourself and not social media.