Taking A Week Off From Facebook Could Make You Happier, Says Study

Quitting Facebook for a week could make you happier, according to the latest study detailing the negative affects of social media.

A study carried out by the Denmark-based Happiness Research Institute showed that people who avoided the social network for a short period of time were happier than their Facebook-using counterparts.

A total of 1,095 people are divided into two groups, with one group giving up Facebook for a week while the other group continued to use it as normal.

After a week, 88% of the people who hadn’t been on Facebook described themselves as “happy”, compared with 81% of the other group.

The Facebook refuseniks also appeared to be generally more satisfied with 84% saying that they appreciated their lives compared with just 75% of the Facebook-using group.

At the end of the study, those who had avoided Facebook said that they had experienced a richer social life and few difficulties in concentrating over the previous week.

The authors of the study attributed the anxiety associated with Facebook use to envy over other people’s seemingly perfect lives.

“Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have,” said the researchers.

The study also showed that people on Facebook are 55% more likely to be stressed with Happiness Research Institute CEO Meik Wiking describing the social network as a “constant bombardment of everyone else’s great news”.

The research is one of many studies that have proven potentially negative affects of too much time spent on social media.

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