A new study shows that those who don’t spend time on Facebook tend to be happier.
“People on Facebook are 39 percent more likely to feel less happy than their friends.”
That’s the latest from a new study called “The Facebook Experiment,” out of, quite possibly, the happiest place on earth.
No, not Disneyland. Denmark.
The study was conducted by the Happiness Research Institute, “an independent think tank focusing on life satisfaction, happiness and quality of life.”
The researchers asked 1,095 people to quit using Facebook for one week, and self-evaluate their feelings before and after the social media cleanse.
Before the study, 94 percent of the people said that they used Facebook daily, with 78 percent on the social media site for at least 30 minutes or more per day.
After one week, they found that those who quit Facebook reported that they felt significantly more satisfied with their lives. See chart to the right.
And the positive numbers for those who boycotted Facebook just kept rolling in. Check this out: 88 percent of non-users reported being “happy,” vs. 81 percent of users; only 41 percent reported feeling “worried,” vs. 54 percent of Facebook users; and 84 percent reported “enjoying life,” vs. 75 percent of users.
And this was only after one week.
The non-users also reported feeling less depressed and lonely than the Facebook users. And non-users also reported feeling more decisive and enthusiastic.
They also reported greater satisfaction with their real social lives offline.
The good news from taking a Facebook cleanse just keeps on rolling on throughout the study. Who doesn’t want to be happier, less stressed, more focused and have a more fun real life? Those Danes! So smart.
I can’t wait to try this out for myself.
