{"id":44305,"date":"2013-08-16T13:07:19","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T11:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44305"},"modified":"2013-08-16T13:19:14","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T11:19:14","slug":"depressed-time-to-get-off-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/44305\/depressed-time-to-get-off-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Depressed? Time to get off Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with life, a new study suggest that it&#8217;s because you&#8217;re on <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1710-Facebook\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, aimed to see how Facebook use influences subjective well-being over time.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers used experience-sampling of 82 people over two-weeks to examine how Facebook influenced the two components of subjective well-being: how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their lives.<\/p>\n<p>In the first and third phase of the study, participants completed a set of questionnaires about their lives, experiences and motivations for using Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>The key second phase involved particpants being randomly directed to quick online surveys five times a day for two weeks, asking these five questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;How do you feel right now?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;How worried are you right now?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;How lonely do you feel right now?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;How much have you used Facebook since the last time we asked?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;How much have you interacted with other people &#8216;directly&#8217; since the last time we asked?&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The results of the study indicated that Facebook use makes people more negative and unhappy over time.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Why the long face?<\/h3>\n<p>The study, which tracked how worried, lonely and satisfied participants felt during the testing phase, found a direct link between Facebook and negative psychological states.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time,&#8221; the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, the study found that interacting with other people \u201cdirectly\u201d did not lead to these negative outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>Participants were not moderated by the size of their Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection,&#8221; the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, the researchers also provided alternative explanations for their findings.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22093\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Stressed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22093\" class=\"size-full wp-image-22093\" alt=\"Does Facebook make you feel like this?\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Stressed.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Stressed.jpg 600w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Stressed-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-22093\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Does Facebook make you feel like this?<\/p><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Is Facebook really to blame?<\/h3>\n<p>The first alternative explanation was that possibly any form of social interaction undermines well-being.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Another alternative explanation for these results is that people use Facebook when they feel bad (i.e., when they are bored lonely, worried or otherwise distressed), and feeling bad leads to declines in well-being, rather than Facebook use per se,&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the researchers, however, there was no evidence to support these interpretations, as direct social interaction actually made participants feel happier, and the research data showed that people felt worse after using Facebook, rather than before.<\/p>\n<p>The research paper did concede that it would be &#8220;unrealistic&#8221; to expect any single factor to powerfully influence subjective well-being, but emphasised that it was important to identify any factor that could influence it, &#8220;especially when that factor is likely to accumulate over time among large numbers of people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rather than enhancing well-being, as frequent interactions with supportive &#8216;offline&#8217; social networks powerfully do, the current findings demonstrate that interacting with Facebook may predict the opposite result for young adults \u2014 it may undermine it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More on Facebook<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Facebook hits 1 billion users\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/23651\/facebook-hits-1-billion-users\/\"><strong>Facebook hits 1 billion users<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to SA Facebook users in alarming decline\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/33223\/sa-facebook-users-in-alarming-decline\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">SA Facebook users in alarming decline<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/22537\/facebooks-dirty-little-tween-secret\/\"><strong>Facebook\u2019s dirty little tween secret<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to South Africans are bored with Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/29990\/south-africans-are-bored-with-facebook\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">South Africans are bored with Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with life, a new study suggest that it&#8217;s because you&#8217;re on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6496,45,26],"class_list":["post-44305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-depression","tag-facebook","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44305"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44309,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44305\/revisions\/44309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}