Social Media Kills

John M. Grohol's credits social media with the ever increasing suicide rate:

Coming back to that idea of social networks like Facebook contributing to the rise in the U.S. suicide rate, I find that there may be something there worthy of researchers pursuing further. If you’re already depressed, lonely, or socially isolated, checking a site like Facebook on a regular basis is likely to reinforce those depressive feelings, according to the research. Inadvertently, Facebook has created a method that makes sad people feel even more sad about their lives, because of the social comparison that is happening that is the foundation of the service.

A trend I've noticed also within online support groups and forums for people with mental illness, there's sort of a perverse "hierarchy of helplessness" that privileges the loudest, not necessarily the sickest, ignoring the fact that measuring someone's worth in yardsticks of suffering (which is purely subjective in the first place) is a pretty shitty thing to do. You can (get out of bed, go to work, ect), therefore, your pain isn't as great as mine. This, I think, is just as bad as the kind of "haves vs have nots" social comparison he's talking about.