How much time do you spend on Facebook? Now, be honest. This is a safe place, go ahead and tell me. Yeah, wow, that is a lot of time. But no, let me be serious. It’s easy to recognize that the way that we spend our free time and connect with our peers has transformed as well.
Humans are social animals. That is a proven fact. It’s also been proven that when we are being social, the portions of our brain that process basic rewards like food are also working.
But the way that we interact with people—or even make new friends—has completely changed from the way it was in the past. Technology has moved our social contact with others to phones, through text message, and to the computers, through email and social networks.
Those social networks though…what are they really doing to us? Recent studies are showing that instead of flaring those pleasure centers of our brains like face-to-face interaction does, these sites are actually lowering self-esteem and causing people to feel depressed.
A recent study asked college students to answer a questionnaire that included a measure of how satisfied they felt with their life. After this was done, they were sent text messages five times a day over a period of two weeks that asked how well they felt at that moment and how often they used Facebook. It also asked how often they had direct interaction with others since the last text message was sent. At the end of that second week, the participants were asked to complete another questionnaire.
At the end of the study, researchers found that those who said they used Facebook more often also tended to have a larger decline in their life satisfaction from the beginning to the end of the study.
There are limitations to this, study though. This a correlational study, which means that while yes, these two variables seem to be correlated there is no way to tell if there is a third variable that is causing both the increased use of Facebook and the decreased life satisfaction.
There is some speculation as to why these two things are correlated. Those who browse Facebook are watching other people upload photos or making statuses about fun things that they are doing with their group of friends. All while those who are browsing Facebook are doing…well, nothing. They’re browsing Facebook.
So, don’t go and delete your Facebook account, but maybe use it a bit less. Instead of watching others having fun, go out and have some of your own! Go make those pictures to put on Facebook instead of looking at those of others.
Study source: http://selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich.edu/papers/Kross_etal_FB_2013.pdf