Study finds rampant envy on Facebook

Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.

A study conducted by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network, which has more than 1 billion users.

The researchers found that 1 in 3 people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

"We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook, with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Humboldt University in Berlin told Reuters.

"From our observations, some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site," Krasnova said, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching a saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany, found that vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment, with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday pictures on Facebook.

Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy, as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many "likes" or comments were made on photos and postings.

"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction," the researchers said in the report released Tuesday