Just, a creative agency based in the Netherlands, is launching a campaign named "99 Days of Freedom," asking users to completely log out of Facebook for 99 days.
The purpose of the study is to find out whether the absence of Facebook will affect a person's individual happiness. The agency will administer happiness surveys on the 33rd, 66th and 99th day of the experiment to participants.
The "99 Days of Freedom" campaign is the agency's direct response to the psychological experiment carried out by Facebook data scientists that attempted to determine if emotional contagion, which is the phenomenon where the emotions of one person can affect that of another, can be replicated on the social network.
The experiment controversially adjusted the News Feeds of unsuspecting users, exposing people to more negative status updates to determine if the user will also post negative status updates in return.
"99 Days of Freedom" turns the effects of the emotional contagion study around and instead aims to see if people will be happier without Facebook in their lives.
Merjin Straathof, Just art director, revealed that the campaign started out as a joke within the agency.
"As we discussed it internally, we noted an interesting tendency ... everyone had at least a 'complicated' relationship with Facebook. Whether it was being tagged in unflattering photos, getting into arguments with other users or simply regretting time lost through excessive use, there was a surprising degree of negative sentiment."
"Then someone joked, 'I guess that the real question is, 'How do you feel when you don't use Facebook?'" he said.
Facebook users who wish to join the campaign may download an image from the official 99 Days of Freedom website and use it as their profile picture. Participants are then told to share their last link on Facebook for the next 99 days to create a personal countdown. Participants may also send in their e-mail address to join the happiness survey.
Participants are then requested not to use Facebook for 99 days, which means no logging in to the social network to check for updates, no usage of Facebook Messenger, and no sharing of links or posts. Just wants a complete withdrawal from Facebook, to see if happiness is really affected by usage of the social network.
There is no way for the agency to monitor if the participants keep their promise, with the whole experiment banking on complete dedication from its participants.
Just adds that, according to Facebook, the network's 1.2 billion users spend 17 minutes daily on average browsing through Facebook. 99 days is equivalent to 28 hours which the agency believes can be spent on more emotionally fulfilling activities such as spending face-to-face time with loved ones.
Straathof and the rest of his team are curious to see and reveal the results, but add that the experiment is in no way a protest or an attack against Facebook.
