Does Facebook make us sad?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-08-09 09:01

International

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International researchers say they found no link between a country's uptake of Facebook and its population having poorer mental health. The team used wellbeing data from close to a million people across 72 countries over 12 years, and compared it with individual usage data from millions of Facebook users worldwide. They say their data did not support the idea that social media was bad for our mental health, and in fact Facebook could be possibly related to positive well-being.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Estimating the association between Facebook adoption and well-being in 72 countries

Royal Society Open Science

Whether social media are influencing their users' mental well-being remains an important topic but is poorly understood empirically. We aimed to lay an empirical grounding to this debate by conducting an exploratory study that examined the broad associations between nations' aggregated levels of Facebook adoption and well-being. Across the board, Facebook adoption was predictive of improved psychological well-being. Yet, this study could not answer questions about causality; answering these questions with the detail required needs more transparent collaborations between independent researchers and the technology industry.

Facebook and well-being – The largest study of its kind found no evidence of a link between rising social media use globally and lower psychological well-being. Facebook uptake and usage data from 72 countries was compared with nearly one million individuals’ responses to wellbeing surveys conducted from 2008 – 2019. No association between Facebook use and negative wellbeing was found, despite popular claims. ‘Transparent collaborative research’ between scientists and the tech sector could help determine social media impacts on users, the authors said. Royal Society Open Science

Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Tilburg University, Netherlands

Funder: This manuscript is not yet peer-reviewed. This research was supported by the Huo Family Foundation and Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/T008709/1. This study and methodology was reviewed and approved by the Oxford Internet Institute’s Departmental Research Ethics Committee (grant no. SSH_OII_ CIA_21_084). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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