This is why my facebook is entirely memes. I'd much rather look at lame captions poorly matched with cute cat and dog pictures, than see yet another 'My life is better' post.
I look at pictures of my friends doing cool things as inspiration to keep doing cool things. Not in a competitive sense, but seeing my friends having a great time inspires me to keep traveling and keep doing interesting things.
This is also exactly my view about Facebook usage. I think it's a good, healthy use case of it, especially for people with means to (which you and I appear to be).
I think the general negative view is because people without the means (for example, money, to travel, for variety of reasons), simply become more miserable as they watch friends travel on FB.
It's probably a more complicated sociological topic. Many would like to paint it just black or white though.
It's the fact that it's an unreasonable and unhealthy comparison.
It's like watching someone's highlight reel and thinking their the best player ever. Of course not, no one's ever as good as their highlight reel.
We all have time and means for a vacation or two but when everyone only posts their vacations on a platform like FB, it makes it seem as though everyone's life is wonderful. We never see the day to day drudgery.
As much as everyone shits on Snap, it's been the perfect platform for a more 'realistic' view into the lives of friends and acquittances. You feel a lot more connected with folks when everyone's posting shit like morning coffee, memes, stupid selfies, small wins and the day to day.
