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Do you ever go on Facebook and see that another one of your friends is engaged or having baby number two? You despise them for it because, while they’re creating a life and a family, you’re probably sitting on your couch eating takeout alone watching a romantic comedy. Even though it stings to look at their overly excited status, you like it. And you even comment something along the lines of, “Congrats! You two make such a great couple!” But inside, you’re raging. You hate the fact that this status made you feel like trash and you hate that you commented AND liked it.
A two-year study done by researchers Holly B. Shakya and Nicholas A. Christakis, from the University of California and Yale University, has revealed that every link you click on and every like that you give out decreases your well-being by 5-8%. How is that possible you might ask? Well according to Shakya and Christakis, “We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.”
Not only does all of that liking and link clicking bring down your quality of life, but your well-being also directly correlates with the quantity of time spent on Facebook. It is estimated that people spend at least 50 minutes a day on Facebook. If you have a Facebook, which I’m sure most of you do, you know that Facebook that is mostly people bragging about their success or people posting their unwanted political opinions. Imagine looking at people’s success and irritating opinions about politics for 50-minutes a day. Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine it because you probably do it.
Shakya and Christakis also concluded that “the danger of prolonged social media use is when users believe they are engaging in human interaction, when in fact they are receiving none of the benefits of face to face interaction.”
While you might subconsciously love answering the call of your Facebook addiction so you can look at those cute cat videos or chat with an old friend, if time starts to pass you by really fast and 11:00 AM turns into 3:00 PM, you have a problem. Keep your likes limited and the links that you click on scarce. And if your one friend posts a new profile picture and gets mad at you for not liking it and commenting, “so pretty!”, remind her that it’s for the sake of your well-being.
h/t Indy 100
