The Social Network

19 Feb 2011 - People with the most Facebook "friends" are more likely to feel stressed out by the site, according to researchers. Edinburgh Napier University found a significant minority of users suffered "considerable Facebook-related anxiety".However, they only received very modest rewards.
More than one in 10 said Facebook made them feel anxious and more than three in 10 said they felt guilty about rejecting friend requests.The study found that 12% of the students questioned said they disliked receiving friend requests, while almost two thirds (63%) said they delayed replying to friend requests.
The university's Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study, said: "The results threw up a number of paradoxes.

"For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits."And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed. Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good”