Have you ever stopped to think about the tools you use for communicating with friends and family? Chances are they are the same as what we use in our professional lives. Facebook, Twitter, email and text. Sometimes we even use the phone and see one another in person. But mostly we text or Facebook one another. Yup Facebook is a verb.

I read an article called Does Facebook Make Us Lonely, in The Atlantic that suggests people who have active outlets, rather than passive ones are happier. The article defined an active outlet as anything you physically participate in, such as a team sport or social gatherings. Television was labeled as a passive activity, which is no surprise, but so was social media.

“Social media—from Facebook to Twitter—have made us more densely networked than ever. Yet for all this connectivity, new research suggests that we have never been lonelier…”

The article suggested that the more time we spend being ‘social’ on social networks, the more dissatisfied we become. This is because while we’re scrolling through our news feeds reading all the seemingly wonderful things that our Friends are posting, we start to compare our lives to these random snippets.

What we fail to realize in these moments of trolling on our social media channels is that very few people share if they are depressed or feeling inadequate. We only see the happy or the angry vent. We don’t really see into someone’s day to day life. Trust me, their lives have dull spots too! However, the more we invest in ourselves, the happier we become. So being social in our physical lives can lead to happiness.

The article asks this fundamental question: Does the Internet make people lonely, or are lonely people more attracted to the Internet?

Thoughts?