--- title: Why People Post Annoying Status Updates on Facebook description: People who aren’t emotionally stable post more frequently in order to regulate their emotions and receive social support canonical: https://time.com/3461970/why-people-post-annoying-status-updates-on-facebook/ author: Eric Barker article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-03T17:55:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:12.950Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why People Post Annoying Status Updates on Facebook og:description: People who aren’t emotionally stable post more frequently in order to regulate their emotions and receive social support og:url: https://time.com/3461970/why-people-post-annoying-status-updates-on-facebook/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99caaf4d21831184/6986a6fa169ab062c427b907/facebook-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5280 og:image:height: 2970 og:image:alt: Facebook keyboard og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why People Post Annoying Status Updates on Facebook twitter:description: People who aren’t emotionally stable post more frequently in order to regulate their emotions and receive social support twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt99caaf4d21831184/6986a6fa169ab062c427b907/facebook-keyboard.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why People Post Annoying Status Updates on Facebook > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Facebook Is Planning Virtual Reality Apps For Everyone [Watch (HLS stream): Facebook Is Planning Virtual Reality Apps For Everyone](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ncI9ZLvX.m3u8) (1:49)  _Published 2015-02-18. Facebook wants all its users to be able to create and upload content for virtual reality systems such as Oculus Rift._ by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Oct 3, 2014 5:55 PM UTC  Social media 'Like' symbol on keyboard Social media 'Like' symbol on keyboard Peter Dazeley—Getty Images by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Oct 3, 2014 5:55 PM UTC People who aren’t emotionally stable post more frequently in order to regulate their emotions and receive social support. Low emotionally stable individuals experience emotions more intensely and have difficulty regulating their emotions on their own. Consequently, we suggest that they use the microblogging feature on online social networks (e.g., Tweets or Facebook status updates) to help regulate their emotions. Accordingly, we find that **less emotionally stable individuals microblog more frequently and share their emotions more when doing so**, a tendency that is not observed offline. Further, **such sharing, paired with the potential to receive social support, helps boost their well-being**. Source: “Facebook Therapy: Why People Share Self-Relevant Content Online” by Eva Buechel and Jonah Berger It might be a good strategy because, overall, Facebook users do [get more emotional support](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/does-facebook-increase-or-decrease-the-amount) than other people. ([Here](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/is-facebook-making-us-lonely) are some great tips by experts for using Facebook to enhance your happiness.) The potential downside is that on Facebook everyone shows the best and not the worst, leading to portraits of unattainable lives that [can make people feel bad by comparison](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/does-facebook-make-us-miserable). And the truth is, Facebook promotes mainly [weak, low-commitment friendships](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-kinds-of-friendships-does-facebook-promo). Your Facebook profile probably reveals your [_true_ personality](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/does-a-facebook-profile-show-you-someones-rea). It can tell people whether you have [anxiety](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/can-you-tell-who-suffers-from-anxiety-by-look) and even [predict your job performance](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/can-your-facebook-profile-predict-your-job-pe). Your Facebook profile is as indicative of how extroverted you are as actually sitting down with you for a short meeting. It can predict your openness to experience as well as watching your social behavior. Via [Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465013821/ref=as%5Fli%5Fss%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=spacforrent-20): (Bigger blob indicates the item at the top is more telling about the characteristic on the left.) Your Facebook “relationship status” says a lot about [how happy you probably are](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/are-facebook-users-happier-single-or-in-relat). What’s a really good sign? Men who listed their partnership status (“In a relationship with…”) and women whose profile picture displayed their partner both [had happier relationships](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-does-your-facebook-profile-say-about-you). In fact, Facebook can predict with a 33% accuracy who you’ll be dating _next week_: Via [The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OHSS58/ref=as%5Fli%5Fss%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=spacforrent-20): As the service’s engineers built more and more tools that could uncover such insights, **Zuckerberg sometimes amused himself by conducting experiments. For instance, he concluded that by examining friend relationships and communications patterns he could determine with about 33 percent accuracy who a user was going to be in a relationship with a week from now. To deduce this he studied who was looking at which profiles, who your friends were friends with, and who was newly single, among other indicators.** And those people posting all those status updates to regulate their emotions may not be aware of the main reason for un-friending: [Posting too many boring updates](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-are-the-top-reasons-for-facebook-un-frie). **Join 25K+ readers.** Get a free weekly update via email [here](http://eepurl.com/o6uAD). Related posts: [Is Facebook making us lonely?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/) [Does email turn you into an asshole?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/does-email-turn-you-into-an-asshole/) [5 things you didn’t know about friendship](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/03/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-friendship/) **_This piece originally appeared on_** [**_Barking Up the Wrong Tree_**](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/)**_._** ### This Is What Your Facebook Profile Looked Like Over the Last 11 Years  The Original Facebook Group Page, 2004\. Before people realized how awesome pictures are. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2005\. Back when Facebook looked a little bit like MySpace. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page Facelift, 2005\. The "the" is finally dropped. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2006\. You no longer need to be reminded "this is you" at the top of your profile page. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2007\. Every profile update still had to begin with "is," forcing you to talk about yourself in the third person. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2008\. The wall. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2009\. It only took five years for Facebook to create easy-to-find privacy settings. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2010\. Facebook starts to get pretty. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2011\. Zuckerberg realizes that people love pictures, usually of animals. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2012\. The timeline allows you (or your parents) to trace your life from birth to death. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2013-2014\. Facebook introduced a new app, Paper, on Monday. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2014-2015\. Facebook updated both the newsfeed algorithm and the privacy settings. Courtesy of Alex Fitzpatrick/Facebook ## Transcript Status updates on Facebook could soon feel much more real. Facebook is said to be working on new apps that will give the site a virtual reality twist. Speaking at Recode's code media conference, Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox said, VR content will eventually be something anyone can create and upload to Facebook. I think the version of the world where you're sending, you know, a fuller, immersive picture of what you're doing. And you think people are gonna be creating that, that experience? Totally. Absolutely. Or are they gonna rely on publishers to do it. This has been part of the plan since Facebook plunked down $ 2 billion for virtual reality head set maker Oculus. As Mark Zuckerberg put it, imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online. But entire experiences and adventures. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was a bit less poetic at the consumer electronic show this year. I don't think it's going to be Facebook the social network in VR, but people are narcissists. And they want people to see what they think are their amazing lives. When that will happen is still up in the air. Consuming that kind of content, much less creating it, requires specialized hardware that's no where near mainstream yet. Consider Oculus, which has two rift development kits for early adopters and programmers. It cranked out more than 60, 000 of the first prototype before production stopped, and Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe says more than 100, 000 of the second version have shipped as of February 2015. So we'll round it up and call it 200, 000 Rifts in the wild. Compare that to the user base of Facebook as of the fourth quarter 2014, 1. 39 billion monthly active users. Only about 200 million of them access the site on a traditional computer, which as of right now is required to run a Rift headset. Today's 200, 000 odd Rifts divided by 100 million Facebook users represents one- tenth of 1 % of Facebook's desktop users. How these back of the envelope calculations will change depends in part on when Oculus consumer version hits shelves and how much it costs. 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