Facebook Is Making Us Miserable, New Study Says

It seems that if you seek a happier life you should quit Facebook right now. According to an article called “The Facebook Experiment: Quitting Facebook Leads to Higher Levels of Well-Being,” deactivating your Facebook account will help you be happy in a more genuine way.

The article was recently published in the journal “Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking” and it has some compelling evidence for all the heavy Facebook users out there.

“It was demonstrated that taking a break from Facebook has positive effects on the two dimensions of well-being: our life satisfaction increases and our emotions become more positive.

Furthermore, it was demonstrated that these effects were significantly greater for heavy Facebook users, passive Facebook users, and users who tend to envy others on Facebook,” it said in the article.

Social Fight Against Other Facebook Users

The aforementioned article builds on a study conducted in Denmark by The Happiness Research Institute. Half of the research participants quit Facebook for one week and found that their wellbeing took a positive turn, with the evidence of Facebook negatively affecting our lives altogether.

It appears that the main issue with spending time on Facebook is that it offers endless opportunities for social comparison.

Seeing some acquaintance of yours posting countless photos from exotic vacations, or reading about their career accomplishments, can make you feel worse about yourself and your current status.

Social comparison theory states that:

“We determine our own social and personal worth based on how we stack up against others. As a result, we are constantly making self and other evaluations across a variety of domains (for example, attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, and success).”

Envious, We Are

The study also found that taking some time off from Facebook will provide the greatest benefit for the following types of users:

1. Heavy Facebook users (people who use Facebook as their main leisure activity)
2. Passive Facebook users (people who mindlessly scroll their newsfeed)
3. Users prone to envy

“If one is a heavy Facebook user, one should use Facebook less to increase one’s well-being. And if one tends to feel envy when on Facebook, one should avoid browsing the sections (or specific friends) on Facebook causing this envy,” Danish researchers wrote. “And if one uses Facebook passively, one should reduce this kind of behavior.”

How many times a day (or week) do you use Facebook?