Study: Staying off Facebook can make you happier
qz.com
qz.com
Personally, I find that Facebook has become my address book - while I still text people I see every day, Messenger group chats are often used instead. Plus the voice and video calls have been a great way to keep up with people further afield. Yes, Skype exists, but Facebook is easier - which is huge with older relatives.
That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.
I'm not sure it's entirely frivolous...
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and...
On the one hand, I can think fairly deeply. Yes, I do regard that as a positive quality. And yes, a lot of social interaction gets in the way of that. ("Interruptions shatter mental momentum" - I forget who said it, but when you're trying to think deeply, it's really true.)
On the other hand, I need human interaction - maybe not as much as most other people, definitely not all the time, but I need it. I need to be able to be a person, not just a thinking machine.
So maybe I'm "unsocial" without being "anti-social"...
To be fair he said "lack of desire for lots of social interaction" -- with emphasis on the word "lots" -- and not "lack of desire for social interaction".
cortesoft may very well be needing social interaction (inasmuch as Maslow's hierarchy of needs is fulfilled), just not lots.
Finally someone brave enough to stand up and break this hype about "stop using Facebook."
> I'm not sure what the answer to that is. Some say Snapchat is a much better place for people to be their true selves - I can believe it.
I am in my twenties and I find Snapchat really weird. I don't know, I find both typing out the message from a computer keyboard and a straight google hangout/skype chat more natural than a (what??) 5-second snap story... my impression is Snappers tend to make vine-like videos with snapchat and that is just so unnatural....
Conversely, Snap Stories can indeed get very Vine-like. They can be quite fun, but if you're making them for the wrong reasons (to get attention) then they lose their meaning.
Or they're all posting negative stuff about their own lives/society. Either way it's lose/lose.
> That said, this study doesn't surprise me. In terms of public posts everyone projects their "best life", so you're browsing through a catalogue of amazing experiences while you sit at home feeling a little fat.
> I'm not sure what the answer to that is.
I'm not on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. (and I'm probably one of a very small minority who has never had accounts) and I wouldn't consider myself "enlightened."
I think "the answer" is to reflect on what it is that adds value to your life and what subtracts value from your life.
If your personal use of social media is focused on activities that you conclude are beneficial, there's no reason you should stop using it. On the other hand, if your use of social media is making you less happy, you should treat it the same way you'd logically treat anything else that makes you less happy.
Unfortunately, as these studies demonstrate, a lot of the people using social media aren't happier for it, and more problematically, many clearly aren't reflecting on that.
And now you're doing the same exact thing they are - boasting about how you're superior to everyone else.
Is it possible for us to have discussions without these signaling-laden put downs? Just say what you want to say and try to refrain from putting everyone else down.
For instance, I think anyone that believes the pyramids were built to store grain is inferior to scientists that can tell me why they were actually built. So be it said.
The best thing Facebook ever did was separate the useful messenger from the terrible main site.
I still keep Facebook around 10% for looking people's contact information and 90% because everyone has migrated to using Facebook's messenger. Cutting it just down to the messenger is a godsend.
Before disappearing into outer space (leaving Facebook) I found that Facebook had become my address book.
I think that is Facebook's greatest use: a self-updating address book. Instead of all my friends having to update their address books when I make a change, I should update my contact info and the changes should automatically be available to them. It's a great idea. Now, we just have to make it happen outside of a closed system.
I don't get any of that on Facebook.
No, I think it's more than that. I have no evidence for this, but I suspect that spending excessive time on the internet will make you feel more isolated (and therefore worse overall), regardless of whether you spend that time on social sites or not. It's the withdrawal from genuine face-to-face contact that is important, not the particular mechanics of such-and-such an app or website.
I think we're still missing something important about human interaction in the way we embody it in computers. Even video does not solve it completely. Telepresence is and will continue to be a major open problem for the forseeable future.
I don't have a lot of friends. I find people so self-aware on FB, I don't find them interesting. People, I used to find interesting, edgy, true individuals seemed to turn into just boring, conformists. Nothing wrong with boring, and conformity? I think it just all reminds me of my own mortality?
I also learned--I'm not the person I thought I was when on FB. Meaning--I'm more critical when I'm on that site, than in real life. Example--I go to someone's site I used to know, and see the physical age in their pictures, and it's just depressing. I see how some have given into being their parents, and it's just depressing. I see the see the car I was suspose to inherit being trashed by my nephew, I get depressed on a lot of levels. I also see that people aren't breaking down my doors looking for me--as a friend, I get depressed. I look at the news feed, and what FB thinks I'm interested in, I get depressed. I see that that the one person I thought would not have over 1000 friends, is actively trying to friend my pseudonym profile, I get depressed. She doesn't even know the most depressed civil war soldier's name, and she wants to friend him. (In the civil war, a soldier was showing signs of melancholy. A doctor decided to call his condition depression. I use that soldier's name on a FB account.)
I see my pictures have been stolen, and I get depressed. I see my stolen pictures, with a new copyright, and I get depressed. I always deactivate my account when leaving FB. When FB, monkeys around with the deactivation process, I get depressed.
So FB does make me depressed some days. Maybe, it's just too much reality? Are we suspose to know exactly what almost everyone is doing, or not doing? What age has done? What lack of opportunities/money did to some peoples lives?
I don't hate FB, but think it needs some real competition. Right now, it's just too big. Its tentacles are integrated in too many websites. It's become its own internet? It's just to much posing, trout mouth, Kardashian, narcissism for some days. Today is that day for me.
But if your town has a "buy, sell, give away" group you should join, those are great.
There is enough of scientific data and studies over the last few decades on the tv screen to reach a scientific consensus but commercial interests and public relations have prevented this consensus from reaching the general public. we have less data for videogames and internet and smartphone but it's already shaping towards something similar.
And there is more than simply replacing actual human interactions by screens, for example most flat screens emit light frequencies in the blue range that have effects on the body and mind, impacting sleep and linked to macular degeneration.
Though that being said, facebook due to its format and content has a significant tendency in making people feel bad about themselves.
But email + phone is international, nobody feels like you burdened them by asking them to get a Google account, and nowadays email and phone is all managed through a synced solution on your phone / devices. As a "workflow", contacting someone via phone or email can feel as fluid as any other app.
I use the News Feed Eradicator [1] to deal with the humblebragging stuff. I don't want to see updates and posts, AT ALL. I just want messages and event invites.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...
10 years ago having a FB account was cool. Once everyone was on FB then saying you'd deleted your account and gone off the grid was cool and all the people still using it were sheep. Now it's cool to say you're still using it and that everyone who deleted their account is a jerk for mentioning it.
We're just going around in circles.
It's a useful tool, a time pit for others but being critical of someone because they do/don't use it is pretty weak.
Though I remember differently, 10 years ago some of us were warning against facebook as the major privacy concern it was and due to their spam techniques to capture new victims.
Completely agree. Not being on facebook is the new "I don't even own a tv". http://www.theonion.com/article/area-man-constantly-mentioni...
As for using facebook in a sane manner, I was struggling because I rely on messages and event invites so I didn't want to block it completely (and messenger.com and app is not enough for me). But this plugin basically saved me: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kill-news-feed/hjo... -- it simply hides the newsfeed, turning facebook into a fully functional messages/events page that it otherwise completely dull.
Does the same thing at Kill News Feed but replaces it with a quote (e.g. on getting started or how time is the most precious resource).
Not necessarily against the idea of social networking. I just don't like Facebook. I think others should adopt this same attitude. If people think this is boasting so be it. I find it to be just good sense.
But voluntarily giving your contact list and location info, and passing your private conversations via a for-profit data mining machine seems, in principle, not very enlightened.
One day some of that data is going to leak. It's bound to happen.
With that said, what I do regret is missing out on my growing family. My cousins from out of state as well as my siblings are getting married and having kids. I was helping my mom log into her facebook the other day and I saw pictures of my niece's first day of ballet class and my nephew's first day of kindergarden. It made me light up and think "Ah shit, I'm kind of missing out on these things." Although I see them every now and then, stuff like that is the only reason I would even consider getting back on FB. I find it funny that it's for a completely different purpose from when I first joined in college.
Nowadays, I love going to Facebook. My news feed is completely empty.
I've probably only unfollowed about 10% of my total friends list, but the difference is immense, a lot of the noise tends to come from a small subset of the people, in my experience.
While I don't log in to Facebook more than once every six months, your observation gives me hope that I might be able to find some utility in it.
Don't get me wrong, I love the News Feed Eradicator, but it doesn't always change the "Facebook experience" for the better.
I wish the News Feed could be modified significantly, though. It's terrible - so terrible.
Instead, I believe it discourages more focused one-on-one relationship-building in favor of a bi-directional consumption model. People don't interact as much as publish and consume. Knowing what people are doing is not a real substitute for intimacy, but I think the dependence on FB as the medium tends to relegate people to the former (i.e. just keeping up).
In any case, I was responding specifically to an ancestor who stated that he/she was having trouble keeping in touch outside of FB. That makes my point: people tend to be so reliant on FB to manage their relationships, that those relationships evaporate sans FB to the point that people don't even communicate! But, of course, while on FB, people don't generally have meaningful, in-depth conversations.
That pretty much says it all, as it doesn't leave much space for real relationships. Not saying this is absolute, but that it is a net negative.
1) If someone is consistently filling your feed with crap, just unfollow them. It's as easy as clicking an arrow on their post.
2) Go to the profiles of people you want to keep tabs on (family, close friends, etc), click on the "Friends" button up top, and select "Get Notifications". Now you can pretty much ignore your news feed, and only pay attention to Facebook when you receive a notification.
3) I just discovered this and haven't tried it: click the "Following" button (next to the above mentioned "Friends" button) and select "See First". I assume this prioritizes their posts in your news feed. Neat.
As time went on and as my friends list stagnated, facebook kept me attached to the past ("that was so much fun, wasn't it?"). It covered some 7-8 years of my life. Logging on was a bit like falling backwards in time. It makes me remember mistakes I can never undo and moments I can never relive. I was following the events of very old friends I'll most likely never see again. I decided this was not very valuable, so I stopped using facebook.
Deactivating facebook brought my attention back to the present and the future. I'm a bit less distracted. There's no more thoughtless, routine clicking of the facebook link in my bookmarks. I focus a bit better at work. I've put better effort into my proximate relationships (family, friends, coworkers). I've put a bit more effort into my own health and fitness.
These are all small changes, mostly due to a change in my own mindset. But, while it was easy because my close friends and I post very little, deleting facebook was a good first step.
Welcome to real life as it always was. It's actually healthy to not keep touch with all the people you've ever known.
But I now view Facebook as an exercise in internal self-worth: Can I browse through everyone's posts of their 'best life' and be genuinely happy for them? Can I take in their stories without comparing my life to theirs?
I know that I would likely feel better if I didn't put myself through that exercise, but I think it'd be valuable for me if I can actually get to the point where I can browse Facebook and remain as happy, if not more. I'm not there yet, so time will tell.
I also find it emotionally draining to be in constant contact with people you never actually see... it feels as if Facebook allows fake or weak friendships to continue that would naturally die off without it.
The only thing I do miss is the ubiquity of Facebook Messenger and the features it provides over SMS, which I have now reverted to for communicating with friends.
I agree. One of the reasons I left is because constantly checking FB (ironically) made me feel really lonely.
I think we can have the best of both worlds – enjoy our whiskey and discuss philosophy too :) I think there is a future for a social network that can slow things down a little, maybe also summarize, organize and filter an apparently disparate group of things, allowing the user enough time to digest and process the information before moving ahead in leisure.
You want to know why people reported feeling better? Because they changed a habit. When you change anything in your life for a single week, you will feel better because you have pulled yourself out of your everyday routine and are experiencing something NEW. This is the result of a change; what changed - Facebook in this case - does not matter.
The novelty of a change in habit for a single week does not even begin to offer evidence of anything. This isn't even a case of "not enough evidence", but rather "no evidence whatsoever". This novelty is similar to the kind of high you get from buying a new expensive toy/gadget. A temporary boost of "happiness" that quickly fades as the new item just becomes another object in your day-to-day life.
I deleted FB two years ago. I'm a social 20-something. It hasn't impacted my social life at all, actually, and I do feel happier.
I18n friends, my family, or college acquaintances or x-coworkers who I care about are on WhatsApp, Gmail, or Skype. Close friends or dating prospects I text.
YMMV.
No need to crucify people for leaving FB. No need to act like you're superior for leaving FB.
I'll reiterate, I am happier two years later after leaving FB and I feel like I got more time back.
Unfortunately some of them are very narcissistic online and one baits with political bullshit. All are very pleasant to hang out with in real life. None do that kind of shit in real life.
The internet can bring out the worst in people.
I basically go on there once a week or once every two weeks to catch up on the "news" or if I get a message from someone (usually extended family, I have a lot) or an event invite. Unfortunately the narcissism is prominent because its "like" and "comment" bait. :| You could say these people aren't really my friends but, whatever, they like to use facebook to announce things (new job) because its easier than messaging everyone directly. Its also nice to get event invites from people you don't know very well who may otherwise not invite you because they don't know your phone number. Those are opportunities to make new friends. The barrier to getting to know someone better is low. That's nice.
Over the years we've spread out geographically so I can't see them face to face very often but I do as much as I can. (every few months)
Its easy to say only engage people who "enrich your life" in all aspects of it and are 100% perfect but humans are not perfect and facebook caters to a deep human need for attention/group acceptance. I also believe that surrounding yourself with people exactly like you in every way isn't very healthy. There's a lot of people that I don't like at all and I avoid if possible but for the people I do like I tolerate the differences we may have.
I don't have a use for pages or whatever they call them or anything like that.
I could get rid of my facebook but its alright for the amount I use but I couldn't stand being on that shit every day.
I improved my facebook by liking the pages of a bunch of cute animals. Now it's basically an instant messaging client that comes with a stream of puppies and kittens. I almost never see humans unless I go to their pages intentionally!
Some observations:
- I have no idea what's going on in the lives of many people I'm not in close contact with. I have no problem with this.
- My wife tells me about extended family stuff, and shows me the occasional photo. I'm okay with this.
- Instagram has replaced FB to a great degree, for me. But instead of being built around a growing social graph, my Instagram experience is built around a handful of friends and networks of interest. But my usage is nothing like the way I used FB. I post only when I have something to share, and I open the app probably once a week to peruse. I miss tons of stuff, and I'm okay with that.
- I'm involved with a bunch of athletic groups that use FB for events and communication. This is a problem. The degree to which FB has replaced email in this regard is crazy to me. I hope Slack etc. will prove effective at minimizing this.
- I'm launching a business soon and I was concerned that I'd _need_ to be on FB in some commercial capacity. But I honestly think that era is over. Other companies in my industry have anemic feeds that point to the low, low level of engagement through that channel.
- When I feel the need to waste time, some remnant of the FB 'twitch', I look at old faves like englishrussia.com or subject-matter porn like landandfarm.com or everydaycarry.com
- I call/FaceTime my mom more often.
The study says that most people "post their good sides on Facebook"
The study also says that many facebook users "envy" the amazing, happy and success related notes posted by their friends on facebook.
So it seems like you can stay happy on facebook and not feel worried if you
(a) understand that you should not envy your friends
or/and
(b) understand that you shouldn't take all facebook posts as face value and understand that you shouldn't assume that these posts represent your friends lives in entirety. You shouldn't assume that life is a bed of roses for your friends just because they posted the best parts of their life. It is likely that they have just as many problems and troubles as you do even thought their facebook posts may not capture all of these problems.
+ loads of free time
+ more focus on stuff that i think is more productive
+ no need to manage so many events
+ spent time talking to relatives instead of typing with them (in person and/or in phone)
- loss of conectivity with friends (if you are not on facebook you won't get invited to many events)
- not being aware of small trends (like the new meme or the current 'internet localized scandal' as in 'the host of the show x was caught drunk')
- lost track of certain creative friends that only publish stuff on facebook
~ being regarded as a anti-social by certaing groups
~ not caring about stuff that are not that important and is not actually worth the time
~ looking at people using facebook and thinking "i once was a zombie just like you"
Example given is of a Doctor who always dreamed of becoming an amazing doctor healing people and succeeded but one day happened to attend a conference where many of his past batchmates were also present who were making insane amount of money by working for insurance companies. This doctor now felt unhappy and jumped the same bandwagon making even more money that before but the cost of happiness. While the example is anecdotal, the research does show that competition for social status makes people unhappy.
There is nothing wrong about Facebook and our need to use it but the fact that it might make us unhappy might be true.
I use linkedin to stay in touch with colleges, WhatsApp to stay in touch with close friends and family, share pictures etc. and I ignore most other people in my life.
Facebook remain the source of news and interesting links that people share but I am pretty sure someone will fill that need better than facebook sooner or later.
P.S. I use Facebook extensively to run ad campaigns for my apps. But I am not counting that as use.
* stay in touch with friends
* know what events are up (my group of friends create events even for very small gatherings)
* find out about new music from the artists I like
* find interesting links and news about programming/tech (from a group I follow)
* read interesting discussions about programming/tech (same group)
* see interesting posts about indie games and indie game development in general (another group)
* see what people I've long lost contact with are up to nowadays
This is a dangerous confusion to make for people born in the internet era.
Is it about social status? Or is it the ADs? ADs seek out holes to fill with product. Ad-support-media use analytics to more effectively show me my particular holes. After a while, I begin to feel empty.
Of course, no one seems to understand the precautionary principle. If something is potentially implicated in health issues, the rational reaction is to exercise caution. Instead, it's full-steam-ahead, and before we know better it's too late.
Speaking as someone who has a ton of friends (actual friends) who I only get to see once or twice a year, Facebook is a godsend. It let's us stay in touch with people we care about who live on the other side of the planet.
Yeah, if you use it as a meterstick on how "good" you're doing at life, of course it's going to make you depressed. Same goes for if you watch HDTV and do that. If you spend all your time looking at the things and lusting after the things you DON'T have, how the hell could you possibly be happy!?
And to the people complaining about clickbait, the simple fact is Facebook wants you to stay on Facebook which means if you get a shitload of clickbait, you're probably clicking a shitload of clickbait. I dedicated about a month of my daily use and deliberately hid every single clickbait-y link, photo, etc. as well as unliked pages that posted that shit at ANY time. This culled me down to a selection of pages that actually post interesting stuff, and to the friends (and what they post) that weren't clickbait. Sure, I get one every once in awhile but I'd say it's down to about 1 in 40 posts are something crummy, and every time I get it, I hide it. Facebook's news feed is actually extremely well curated, it's just designed to give you things that you will pay attention to, positive or negative attention counts.
Just my two cents of course, your mileage may vary, etc.
Feels like one less thing to think about that didn't actually offer me anything of real value in the end.
I use Facebook occupationally and like its Messenger and Groups a lot so leaving was out of the question. So I bit the bullet and unfollowed all of my friends. Now Facebook is a glorified News Feed for me and I am noticably more serene.
That way, my newsfeed is not polluted and it is up to me to decide who I want to check up on.
I could never totally give it up because it has become an indispensable hub of communication with people I know with Messenger.
Uhuh. I'm gonna go ahead and take this whole article with a massive chunk of salt; this breaks one of the main rules of how to do a statistically meaningful survey, so I don't see much value in the numbers.
I'm curious if someone conducted a study to see the effects of a group of people who have never used facebook use it extensively for a week. Maybe their happiness levels also increase.
(All those nice vacation pics must be financed somehow.)
This is social media.
facebook is where i learn more things in than any other places.
okay fine, there's wikipedia and youtube too
Wikipedia is slightly understandable but it should not be any more thnan a quick reference guide on a given topic, but taken with a grain of salt. It certainly shouldn't be taken as gospel truth.