A study conducted by researchers at New York and Stanford universities reveals that quitting the social media platform Facebook might atually make people happier but also dumber.
In a report by nypost.com, the researchers conducted a study to nearly 3,000 Facebook users and asked them to to fill out extensive questionnaires regarding their daily habits, politics and general mood.
Half of the participants were later chosen to deactivate their Facebook accounts and were paid $102— the average amount of what they indicated as reasonable to cut off digital access to their social life.
The participants’ profiles were monitored by the researchers to make sure they are complying but about 1 percent of them were not able to make it within the given 1 month period.
The participants were then asked to take the survey once again after four weeks to measure emotional and intellectual changes wherein those who abstained from Facebook had at least one hour of extra free time and had better moods.
However, they also scored lower than they had before deactivating their Facebook accounts when it comes to factual knowledge of current events.
Stanford economist and co-lead study author Matthew Gentzkow then said in a statement: “It’s hard to know what to make of this. It may be that seeing a lot of news and politics on Facebook tends to polarize people. But once they’re off Facebook, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re using the extra time to read [the newspaper].”
(Photo source: gizmodo.com.au/ newsbook.com.mt)
