According to US scientists, unintentional exclusion has psychological consequences

Facebook users hurt their friends' feelings on the social web every day. Decreased thinking skills and negative emotions can be linked to unintentional social exclusion on Facebook and other platforms, a recent study by researchers at the University at Buffalo shows.

Accidental exclusion

The study not only takes a critical look at Facebook and other similar platforms, but also at the specifics of the systems on which these websites operate. For the study, the researchers designed scenarios that reflected typical interactions on Facebook and involved 194 people in the experiment.

Although in most cases users do not exchange exclusion information with their friends, social media platforms still make most information available from one friend to another. The consequences of interpreting these messages are significant, according to the researchers.

“These results are important not only because we are talking about the feelings of individuals, but also raise questions about how the extent of these interactions affects day-to-day work. Offline research suggests that social exclusion produces various physical and psychological consequences, such as reduced complex cognitive thinking,"

said study author Jessica Covert.

Harmless posts hurt

At first glance, the posts on social networks at the center of the study appear harmless. Users open Facebook to follow the exchange between friends - and realize that they have been unintentionally excluded. For example, when users who are friends talk about a night out at a party together or publish photos of them together.

“The point is that the messages can be interpreted in a way that makes people feel excluded. And this feeling, as harmless as it may sound, is not so easy to reject,”

says the expert Michael Stefanone, who worked on the study. Social exclusion is one of the most powerful sanctions people can use against others and can have damaging psychological effects.

“When users see these exclusion signals from friends – who they didn’t really mean to exclude but it was interpreted that way – they feel bad,”

sums up Stefanone.

Preview image: Photographee.eu / Shutterstock


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