Do you spend a lot of time on Facebook? Looking up pictures of exes who’ve clearly been hitting the gym, old rivals working on that next promotion, and an endless barrage of amazing vacation pictures from people you hate? And are you unhappy?
To the surprise of no one, new research published in PLOS One suggests that the more a young adult uses Facebook, the less happy they are. Researchers studied 82 young adults with Facebook accounts, periodically measuring their use of Facebook and asking questions like “How worried are you right now? How happy are you right now? How much have you interacted directly with people since your last survey?”
The study found that the more the participants used Facebook, the more their well-being declined. Incidentally, they also found that telephonic or face-to-face communication made people happier.
Granted, the study’s authors didn’t say if they controlled for variables like how often one’s Facebook friends invite you to play Candy Crush, or the frequency in which your dad uploads sideways pictures.
