Stress, depression, sleep disturbances or even a weakened immune system … social media addiction can have a big impact on mood and health. But will stopping logging in temporarily make you happier? This is what researchers from the universities of Stanford and New York (United States) tried to find out. For their study, entitled ” The Welfare Effects of Social Media (The Effects of Social Media on Social Welfare) and revised in March, they asked 2,844 moderate users to log out for $ 100 and for a month.
Significant improvements
Several times a day, participants’ profiles were checked to make sure they were leaving their accounts disabled. Daily text messages were also sent to them to find out how they were feeling. Finally, the respondents were indeed happiest disconnected from facebook. “Deactivation resulted in minor but significant improvements in well-being, and in particular in self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression and anxiety.”, write the authors of the study.
More interactions in real life
This month-long cut also free time participants: they had an average of one hour more per day. And rather than going to other sites and social networks, internet users were more inclined to put their digital lives aside. They spent more time watching TV, socializing with friends and families, or exercising. They were however “Less able to correctly answer factual questions about recent current events”. The platform remains an important source of information.
Reduced dependency
The final point of the research was to determine whether logging out had a long-term impact on Internet users’ use of Facebook. Several weeks after the end of the study, those who had deactivated the application were using it 12 minutes less daily than the control group. 5% have definitely turned their backs on it, and had not reactivated their account nine weeks after the end of the experiment. “This ties in well with economic models of dependency, which have established that reducing consumption during one period reduces the marginal utility of consumption in future periods.”, conclude the researchers.
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