"While it’s conceivable that my friends and family are a particularly catastrophic bunch, the real explanation is surely obvious: **it’s only those with whom I’m most intimate who let me see the unvarnished reality.** "That’s a timeless truth, of course, but there’s a strong case to be made that these days it’s worse than ever: **thanks to Facebook and other social networking sites – and the frictionless ease of electronic communication in general – it’s far easier to maintain weak quasi-friendships, and thus to hear the burnished versions of far more lives**. "‘In my trips back [home], I have been struck each time by the discord between people’s Facebook lives and what they say in private,’ writes the blogger [[Stan James]], in a penetrating post at wanderingstan.com. ‘On Facebook they have been on an amazing vacation … in person they confess that the vacation was a desperate attempt to save a marriage. **On Facebook they have been to glitterati tech conferences. In person they confess they haven’t been able to sleep for months**.’" --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[dealing-with-social-media]], [[optimal-distinctiveness-theory]], [[groupthink]], [[in-group-out-group-bias]], [[social-comparison-bias]], [[relationships]], [[parenting]] **Source** -- [[20241114100017 - B - Help!]]