Since the explosion of social media into our world, networking and communication has changed face quite dramatically. Where we used to pick up a phone and speak to people or arrange to meet face-to-face, we now arrange online chats, keep up to date through Facebook statuses and Tweets, and schedule Skype sessions.

Psychologists fear that all of these distant forms of communication are enhancing loneliness instead of alleviating it and are actually causing us to become sadder – not in the cool sense of the word, but in the emotional sense.

There are lots of explanations as to why this could make sense, and perhaps in some cases it does make sense, but there has been no causal evidence found. All research has turned up is correlations and subsequent speculations – this in no way means that one variable causes the other. It is VERY possible that there is some external factor that has not been taken into account or measured in the study that results in a correlation between increased social media use and increased sadness.

If we are to believe that the correlation does, however, suggest some causality the sentiments of TS Elliot on the invention of the TV are particularly pertinent here:

“It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome,” he wrote.

If you do feel sadder after using Facebook more, have a browse through the research explained by BBC, think they are onto something?