Children can develop depression and anxiety trying to gain more friends on social media, expert warns

FACEBOOK may be a “social” media tool, but one aspect of it is having a devastating affect on our children, with experts saying it is causing many “scary” side effects.

QUEENSLAND kids are developing depression and anxiety from having too few Facebook friends, experts warn.

The recent phenomenon, known as “Facebook depression”, involves mainly millennial kids competing with one another to build a strong online presence and has expanded to platforms like Instagram and Twitter.

University of the Sunshine Coast associate professor Michael Nagel said the trend was “so scary”, children have lost touch with reality.

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“Once you have developed a long list of friends you reach a point of saturation and kids can often lose their understanding of the concept of friendship,” Mr Nagel said.

“They get anxious and depressed because their friends in the real world are telling them they have all these friends online, so it becomes a competition and a vicious cycle.”

Eliza Murphy, 15, has about 400 Facebook friends and said looking at peers with thousands of friends could be “very intimidating”.

“I know a few girls who have 2000 to 3000 followers on Facebook or Instagram and it can almost feel like they’re famous,” Ms Murphy said.

According to Mr Nagel, a significant number of children are experiencing “troubling” forms of depression by measuring their value by the tally of friends they can accumulate on a screen.

Lia Woolnough (front) with her real-life friends (from left) Caitlin Hammermaster, Sophia Gabauer and Eliza Murphy. Picture: Liam Kidston

“We are only beginning to see what those long-term problems could be for children who rely on Facebook as a measure of their worth,” Mr Nagel said.

“These followers are just a number or an acquaintance at most. They’re not people you sit down and have a long chat with and parents should be encouraging their kids to make friends in the real world.”

Lia Woolnough, 15, uses Facebook every day and said many of her peers will go to extreme measures just to improve their following.

“There are people who watch who they are friends with often and will unfollow people to make sure it’s up-to-date,” Ms Woolnough said. “I think a lot of people feel like they aren’t known on social media without a heap of followers and for them, it’s extremely important.”