Looking for Facebook friends? Keep it positive

Discovery News:

Updating your Facebook status with the torrid details of your bad day? Think twice: People with low self-esteem who post negative details about their lives on Facebook may find their online friends diminishing.

Amanda Forest, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, had expected that a new study, which she and her adviser, Joanne Wood, recently had published in Psychological Science, would show that Facebook promoted stronger relationships for those with low self-esteem. Instead, the researchers found that too many negative posts can cause social harm.

“If you’re talking to somebody in person and you say something, you might get some indication that they don’t like it, that they’re sick of hearing your negativity,” Forest said. “On Facebook, you don’t see most of the reactions.”

Read the whole story: Discovery News