I left Facebook in the fall of 2010 — six months after graduating from college — and I haven’t looked back. In the beginning, I missed out on a bunch of event invites from friends (parties, social gatherings, events) and all the photos people post, but I’ve made up for it by connecting with people by calling them or meeting up with them in person.
The Happiness Research Institute in Denmark recently did a study with 1,095 participants — all Facebook users. Half of the participants were instructed “Do not use Facebook for one week.” Here’s what they found:
- In the group that stopped using Facebook for that period, a significantly higher level of life satisfaction
- People who had taken a break from Facebook felt happier and were less sad and lonely
- After one week without Facebook the treatment group experienced an increase in their social activity and an increase in their satisfaction with their social life
- After one week without Facebook the treatment group experienced less concentration difficulties
- People on Facebook are 55% more likely to feel stressed
- People taking a break from Facebook are 18% more likely to feel present in the moment
- After one week without Facebook the treatment group felt they wasted their time less.
- They also found that envy on Facebook was measurable: “Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have.”