The findings of Jordan et al.
suggest that upward social comparison and envycan be rampant in a peer-dominated SNS environment, which can provide explanation to negative outcomes passive following was shown to produce.
Specifically, in a nonSNS related study, the authors show that people tend to underestimate negative experiences of others and overestimate their positive experiences, which causes negative emotions to proliferate. SNS environment is particularly likely to exacerbate envy feelings, since it promotes narcissistic behavior, with most users sharing only positive things about themselves.
For example, Chou and Edge find that respondents actively using FB were more likely to agree that “others had better lives than themselves”.
Moreover, friend lists typically consist of individuals with a high degree of similarity to the profile owner, which is particularly conducive for the proliferation of envy feelings.
However, despite the obvious potential of SNSs to promote envy and social comparison, no study to the best of our knowledge has investigated the scale and consequences of this phenomenon in the SNS context.
Recognizing this lack of studies, we draw on research from social psychology and organizational science to discuss potential effects of this emotional state.
In this research, envy is typically described as a painful emotion that emerge as a result of upward comparison to advantaged others, who possess something, that one covets but lacks.
Envy is an unalienable part of social interaction, with people experiencing this feeling in private and workplace
settings, or any other environment, where inter-personal interactions take place.
On the positive side, benign envy was shown to lead to learning, motivation, better performance, and achievement.
On the negative side, malicious envy leads to desire to harm the envied object and breeds hostility.
Endured over longer time periods, envy can damage one’s sense of self-worth, result in group dissatisfaction
and withdrawal, lead to depressive tendencies, reduce perceptions of well-being, and poor mental health.
Considering these detrimental effects of envy, in this study, we explore the dynamics of envy processes in the SNS context. Specifically, in the next step, we examine the scale, scope, and nature of envy-inducing incidents triggered
by FB.
Building on our findings, we then explore whether envy feelings can explain a negative impact of passive consumption on individual well-being