Researchers from the Danish think tank Happiness Research Institute (HRI) have found that spending too much time on Facebook affects one's happiness. The study has been shared hundreds of times all over social media.
According to the study, the test subjects who didn't use Facebook for a week reported they had higher levels of life satisfaction.
But can happiness really be found as easily as simply unplugging from Facebook? Unfortunately, just like many things in life, the answer is much more complicated and there are serious flaws in the study which most tend to gloss over.
According to some observers, one of the most glaring weaknesses in the published findings of the study is that it fails to fully explain exactly what self-reporting techniques were used by the test and control groups to evaluate their happiness levels.
On top of this, a study conducted with a relatively small group (1,095 Danish Facebook users is hardly a diverse sampling of the 1.28 billion Facebook users worldwide) over the course of a mere seven days is not enough to conclude any long-term effects on happiness.
And when you get into the nitty-gritty of the report, it's clear that the HRI did not even touch on how it established any form of causative relationship between decreased Facebook use and happiness and vice versa. This is a problem that makes you think about whether this study can be seriously considered by academia or not.
Sure, it would be great to find a simple solution for happiness. One that can be had as easily as staying off Facebook, which certainly sounds appealing to many. However, don't think that one over-simplified study has all the answers.
In fact, another, more in-depth study that was conducted and published last April found that passive users do in fact experience better well-being over time when they removed themselves from the social media site. However, the opposite was true for more active Facebook users.
In the end, as Caitlyn Dewey of the Washington Post points out, “you get out of Facebook what you put into it, much like anything else in life.”
So if you're a generally happy person, like most Danes tend to be, then you're more likely to be happy in life – with or without Facebook.
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