Constantly receiving Facebook and Twitter notification alerts can stress you out. You open your social media app to read about the trending news of the day as your virtual friends duke it out in the comments. But according to a new survey, people who spend a lot of time on social media do not suffer from stress more than those who go Facebook free.
The Pew Research Center surveyed 1,801 people from Aug.7 to Sept. 16, asking them how much stress they feel using a scale that assesses how much people view their lives to be uncontrollable, unpredictable or overloaded.
The survey found that if you use social media often, you are not adding to daily stress. "There is no evidence in our data that social media users feel more stress than people who use digital technologies less or not at all," said Rutgers University professor Keith Hampton, who led the report.
However, the study found that users are more aware of stressful events, an experience described as the "cost of caring" when they view stressful situations that their online friends are going through.
Women with an average amount of Facebook friends are exposed to 13 percent more stressful events such as a death of a family friend or divorce.
Compared to men, women who use social media and the Internet frequently had higher stress levels, with the average score of 10.5 on the 30-point scale. Men scored an average of 9.8.
But this doesn't mean that women should avoid social media. Women who use Twitter, email and share photos daily were found to have 21 percent less stress than those who didn't.
There was no difference in stress levels among men who use social media and the Internet and those who do not.
[Photo Credit: Sean MacEntee/Flickr]
