Facebook users love a good whinge

Posted by Emma Woollacott

Facebook users are a self-pitying lot, if the company's list of top status updates is to be believed.

Facebook users love a good whingeThe top category, unsurprisingly is 'Facebook Applications'. But after that, it gets more interesting.

Number two is 'FML' - or 'Fuck my life'. Yes, that's really the second most used term. Apparently these people are most miserable on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is when most occurrences crop up, and they were marginally less glum during the summer.

The reason for their misery may be illness or at any rate hypochondria - Swine Flu was the number three update. But they're cheered by the miseries of others, with Celebrity Deaths the fourth most popular term.

"Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them - how they're feeling, what they're doing and what they're thinking," said Lars Backstrom, a data scientist at Facebook.
