Often, people think of leaving Facebook or limiting the amount of time that’s spent on the social media channel. However, it only remains a thought and is not implemented. According to a recent study, conducted on 1769 US undergrads, it was seen that those who didn’t use Facebook for a week felt much better. They even consumed less information.
The paper titled “The Economic effects of Facebook” was published online in the journal Experimental Economics. It has been written by Mofioluwasademi Odunowo, Xiongfei Guo, Trent McNamara, and Ragan Petrie of Texas A&M University along with Roberto Mosquera of Ecuador’s Universidad de las Americas.
For this study, A&M undergrads were surveyed. They were asked on what’s their thinking on the worthiness of Facebook usage.
The undergrads were haphazardly assigned into two groups. One group was restricted from using Facebook; whereas another group’s Facebook restriction wasn’t restricted.
Researchers found that some participants who took a break from Facebook, they didn’t use other channels to gather information. The consumption of news for the Facebook restricted group notably reduced by 0.64 standard digressions to the baseline.
The study showed that the group who were forcedly kept away from Facebook reported healthy behavior. They showed very fewer signs of depressive symptoms. The researchers suggested that using Facebook brings about a feeling of depression. The reason might very well be students of not being involved in healthy things.
However, after getting back to Facebook, the participants allotted a higher monetary value to the platform. One theory presented by the researchers is that Facebook creates addiction. Hence, on being restricted to use Facebook for a week, it increases the inclination to be back on Facebook.
The findings of this present study are uniform with NYU research that came out earlier this year. The earlier study indicated those who remained away from Facebook reported better well-being and even consumed less news.
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