Adams State University

Home is where the heart is

Brianna Garcia
English 102
Kindra Rounds
September 24, 2015

I walk up to grey doors on the south side of the gym, with my peach colored basketball
shoes tied to each other, I throw them over my left shoulder, and gather my hair into a
ponytail slightly on the top of my head. I place my hand on the cold, scratched silver metal
handle then gain a firm hold on it. I begin to pull the door toward me and as the door slightly
cracks open I hear a roar and a cold breeze swipes across my face. As the echo from the roar
fades away, I step into the gym looking down at my black name brand socks come in contact
with the newly waxed, glossy wood floor. The door gently closes behind me then I look up with
an overwhelming excitement.
The usual rows and rows of light brown wood bleachers are compacted against the
east and west walls. The six basketball hoops, usually raised to the ceiling by a single black
remote, are hanging ten feet from the ground. I walk to the bleachers on my left; I take my
shoes off of my shoulder and throw them gently on the ground. As the shoes make a thud I
press my back against the bleachers and begin to slowly slide down them. My bottom reaches
the ground and I pull my knees into my chest wrapping my arms around them then begin
acknowledge the tinniest details of the gym. I look up and stare at windows at the top of the
giant walls with blue athletic figures plastered on them, the sun shining through the white over
lay, I begin to remember how much I missed this feeling of comfort and adrenalin.
I hear shoes squeak and the pounding of the ball as my teammates dribble up and
down the court. Coach is yelling different plays and phrases to keep up hustling and working
hard. I gaze at the bleachers across from me and picture the opponents fans yelling and
pointing toward the refs and players chanting their teams name violently. I move my eyes
toward the blue circle right on the center of the court and can picture myself jumping high

over my opponent to get the ball. My heart starts pounding and butterflies fill my stomach. I
feel sweat roll down my face as my chest goes up and down trying to catch my breath.
I look at the basket on the south side of the gym. I feel different bodies behind me as I
use by body to aggressively keep them away from the ball. I jump and at the peak of my jump
I obtain the ball pull it to my chin. My head begin to swirl with different moves I can do to get
this ball into the basket. I go straight back up, the ball leaves my hands and rolls around the
orange rim. After waiting for what seems like an eternity, the ball slowly falls into the net and I
get the feeling of dominance.
I unravel my arms that are holding my legs and grab my bright colored shoes next to
me. I untie the shoe laces from each other, slip them on my feet and quickly tighten them to
get to work. I stand up and adjust my ponytail one more time then I stare at the utterly
beautiful environment of this place I find refuge, and realize how in love I am with this gym.
Others might find this gym to be anything but special, but I would defiantly have to disagree.
Home is where the heart is, and this gym has my heart.

Running Head:IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

Is Facebook causing Depression?

Brianna M. Garcia
Center High School

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

Abstract
For my semester paper I chose to analyze was the academic peer reviewed journal Too many
friends, too few likes? Evolutionary psychology and Facebook depression written by C.R.
Blease and University College Dublin. I found out if the social networking site Facebook can
really trigger depression. Blease goes into detail about the many reasons why facebook may
cause depression. To fully understand why Facebook causes depression the author describes
how the social networking site works, what causes and triggers depression, and how facebook
can be depressing. Several studies have been done that help prove that internet use can cause
depression but never primarily focus on Facebook and depression alone. The author also
mentions new directions too researching facebook and depression; by stating what needs to be
done to know this. Many questions need to be asked and answered to know if facebook
actually causes depression. The conclusions I perceived from this article were that Facebook
cannot cause depression. Facebook has many features that may trigger users who already have
signs of depression.

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

Main Body
Facebook is a form of a social networking site where feelings of low relative social value
are habitually elicited (Too Many Friends, too few likes? 2015). The academic peer reviewed
journal I chose to research was Too many friends, too few likes? Evolutionary psychology
and Facebook depression. Psychologists have defined Facebook depression as the result of
spending too much time on the social networking site. The author of this journal analyzes the
contention between Facebook usage and depression. Describing Facebook, looking into existing
research of Facebook depression, evolutionary psychology and depression, how facebook is
depressing, and new directions to facing Facebook depression are points that the author
mentions and describes in the journal.
To fully understand why facebook can be a cause of depression the author explains in
detail to what exactly the social networking site does. Facebook was founded in 2004 and
allows members to make personal profiles that allow them to: find other users, exchange
messages, and post personal updates. These personal pages are blank canvases where users
can share anything they like. After a user starts to befriend other users they have complete
access to what their friends are posting. The activity (popular or not) on another persons profile
such as likes and comments can be the result to why people respond with perceptions of
low relative social value. By seeing other users whom post pictures of interactions with people
outside of the social networking site can cause users, who do not have the same interactions, to
instinctually lower their self- esteems (Too Many Friends, too few likes? 2015).
There are existing Facebook Depression studies that have been done while others are
in the process, but these studies have several flaws that introduce reasons to why facebook can

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

cause depression but do not thoroughly explain if Facebook does. The first longitudinal study is
on the effects of home internet health and its impact of psychological wellbeing. This study
concluded that, statistically, there was correlation between internet use and depression. This
study is flawed because nobody studied how a persons psychological well being is before the
use of internet in any respective house hold. Also the researchers concluded that online
relationships are more superficial than face to face relationships. Besides the studies finding
contemporaneous research involving 4,000 Internet users in the United States found that more
than 95% of individuals surveyed did not substitute Internet use for time spent with close
friends and family (Nie & Erbring, 2000 cited in Bargh & Mc-Kenna, 2004) (Too Many Friends,
too few likes? 2015). The author of this journal mentioned these studies to inform people on
how these studies cannot be used to completely tie Facebook to depression. To completely
confirm that Facebook is a cause of depression you would have to undergo specific scientific
research studies connecting facebook and depression alone. The author points out several
questions that need to be known to conduct a proper study on Facebook Depression. The
questions that where mentioned were the following: Do some friends command more
attention than others? Do some user-photographs or pictures attract more attention when
users browse? Do some status updates command greater interest? Do users routinely observe
numerical data such as the number of friends that other users have, or the number of likes or
comments that their postings and the postings of other users attract? (Too Many Friends, too
few likes? 2015) These questions and many more need to be known to verify that Facebook
causes depression.

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

Furthermore, to fully understand how Facebook has an impact on depression you must
know what depression is and what causes it. The author explains what the psychology behind
depression is and what behaviors influence it. Depression is a serious disorder that can be life
threatening and affects hundreds of millions of people all over the world (Pathophysiolgy of
Depression, 2002). It is important to know background information on Facebook and
depression to clearly understand and prove that Facebook might cause depression. The author
continues to further describe the logic behind depression and what triggers it. Seeing status
updates, wall posts, and photos can make users feel unpopular. Cyber bullying can occur when
friends post derogatory statements, upload unflattering pictures, or make negative comments
about them (Web Exclusive, 2015). Users who are already suffering from signs of depression
can go to social networking sites to look for some sort of comfort. While users are scrolling
through their news feed they may come across an update that adds to what they are already
feeling.
Blease continues to talk about why Facebook can be depressing. In order to find out if
Facebook is depression there are specific questions that need to be asked. Mass media and new
media had to be used to analyze high status individuals and attractive individuals. The first
question that was asked is Why might users of Facebook preferentially attend to cues of high
status when navigating the site? To answer this question they need to find out what about
these high status people are so appealing to the opposite label. The author finds out there are
two modes of attention, prestige and dominance. The author then states that they need to find
out information about these two modes and how they play a part in the Facebook site. The next
thing the author has to know about is the attractiveness of individuals on Facebook. Attractive

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

female and male individuals tend to get a more attention on the social networking site because
people are attracted to good- looking subjects. Since these people are getting attention
because of their looks users tend to look through all of their pictures and personal profiles
making them gain more likes and comments. Other users, seeing the attention that these
popular users are getting, are getting self conscious.
Blease concludes this journal by mentioning new directions to continuing to study
Facebook depression. The theories of depression the author states, contend that individuals
are more likely to suffer from depression by having more online relationships, spending more
time updating statuses, rereading their news feeds, and determine if the statuses they are
reading are of bragging nature. Also the more access to popular users profiles the greater the
opportunity for negative self evaluation will be. The author offers new ways to conduct
research on Facebook Depression.
All in all, the purpose of this academic peer reviewed journal was to find out what
Facebook depression is. Describing Facebook, looking into existing research of Facebook
depression, evolutionary psychology and depression, how facebook is depressing, and new
directions to facing Facebook depression are points that the author makes to inform people
on what is going on with Facebook depression. The use of such a popular social networking
site could be a cause to why so people are getting depressed. This paper was written to suggest
new ways to approaching such a broad topic, and how to make this study better than it has
been. I also interpreted that facebook is not necessarily a cause of depression, but it
relinquishes many triggers.

IS FACEBOOK CAUSING DEPRESSION?

References
Blease, C. (2015). Too many friends, too few likes? Evolutionary psychology and Facebook
depression.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.adams.idm.oclc.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=ec626429-d2734e4d-9318e05e475751b2%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c
2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=pdh&AN=2015-12055-001
Nie, N., & Erbring, L. (2000). Internet and society: A preliminary report.
Stanford, CA: Stanford Institute for Quantitative Study of Society.
Brigitta, B. (2002, January 1). Pathophysiology of depression and mechanisms of treatment.
Retrieved April 28, 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181668/
Web Exclusive. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2015, from
http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/exc_080811.shtml