Envy Sensitivity on Twitter and Facebook Among Japanese Young Adults

Introduction

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter have been widely used in people’s daily lives. People can register other users as their friends or follow other users to obtain their updates on social media. They can know how other users spend their lives or what other users are interested in these days. While social media has helped people to know others’ information and status updates, it has brought a negative aspect for them to feel unpleasant emotions like stress and depression while using social media (Boyd, 2006; Maier, Laumer, Eckhardt, & Weitzel, 2012; Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009; O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011).

It is well known that people tend to post their positive events and self-presentational contents on online networks (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006), especially on social media (Bazarova, Taft, Choi, & Cosley, 2012; Page, 2012). This might cause people’s envy to others while browsing those contents. Envy is a negative feeling felt when people watch other people’s success and happiness. Smith and Kim (2007) said that “envy, the unpleasant emotion that can arise when we compare unfavorably with others, is a common experience for most people regardless of culture.”