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Study: Facebook is making users miserable

Published Aug 15th, 2013 11:59PM EDT
Facebook Study User Happiness

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Facebook is the world’s largest social network with more than 1.15 billion monthly active users. From users’ standpoint, the service serves an important purpose by helping keep friends and family connected around the world. But for some, Facebook is doing more harm than good; a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan found that the more people log in to Facebook, the less happy they are.

“On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection,” social psychologist Ethan Kross told The Telegraph. “But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result – it undermines it.” In other words, the more people used Facebook, the more miserable they grew.

While scientific, the study was not an extensive one — only 82 young adults were observed by Kross and his team while research was being conducted. A link to the full study can be found below.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 15 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.