Apparently the more Facebook friends you have the more stressed you’ll be when using the site.

In research that some may question the validity/point of, Scottish psychologists quizzed a bunch of students (why just students?!) about how they use Zuckerberg’s baby (I’m referring to Facebook here, not any offspring of the young billionaire).

Edinburgh Napier University researchers found those users who spent the most time on the site and had more contacts than anyone else were likely to be the most stressed. It’s hard being young and popular – haven’t you seen teen not-actually-real documentary The Hills?

I’d like to add a little of my own psychoanalysis here that the researchers didn’t appear to comment on: the people with the most friends on Facebook and who spend the most time on it are more than likely lonely, insecure and in need of real human contact.

When these anti-outside air people go on Facebook, their unconscious is reminded that they aren’t actually making real contact with actual friends, but instead interacting with basically imaginary friends whose online personas are as detached from their genuine personalities as Apple and Adobe are in their outlook on openness. This only places additional stress on the Facebook users’ already fragile state without them appreciating why.

The more virtual friends they acquire, the more they are reminded how alienated they are from real-world and human interaction, making them even more depressed. No doubt stress levels for the Facebook-obsessed went up a notch on Valentine’s Day. It’s little wonder there weren’t any reports of people inexplicably imploding when February 14th hit, with love hearts and adoring messages splattered all over the social network to remind the lonely just how lonely they were.

There’s plenty of papers and research out there raising concerns about how people are becoming increasingly virtual in their social experiences, as well as what pejorative consequences this might entail. But no one really listens.

And who cares? I’m on Facebook right now, blissfully ignorant in the land of quasi-make believe where I’m a really fascinating, loquacious chap who has a startling amount of friends who I get on with all very well and converse with every day… God, I’m depressed.

P.S. To the 32 per cent of students who said rejecting friend requests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort, try doing it in real life to someone sleazing all over you like a sex-starved B-list celebrity on Viagra… it’s actually quite rewarding.