Shun Facebook to feel more content with life, study suggests

Users suffering from a high level of jealousy on Facebook gain most from taking a break, research claims

Having trouble driving away the green-eyed monster? Quit Facebook, suggests a new study.

Carried out by the University of Copenhagen, the study suggested that Facebook affected people’s well being.  Half of the 1,095 partakers of the study were asked to discontinue using Facebook for a week. Users who took a break from the website were far more content with their life and ranked their happiness higher, the study claimed.



Furthermore, the study found that "heavy Facebook users, users who passively use Facebook, and users who tend to envy others on Facebook" gained most from the break.

In the test following the experiment, Facebook users rated their life satisfaction at an average 7.74 of 10, but those who abstained graded it at 8.11.

“Millions of hours are spent on Facebook each day,” study author Morten Tromholt wrote. “We are surely better connected now than ever before, but is this new connectedness doing any good to our well-being?"



“According to the present study, the answer is ‘no’. In fact, the predominant uses of Facebook – that is, as a means to communicate and gain information about others, as habitual pastime – are affecting our well-being negatively on several dimensions.”

On the last day of the experiment, in the post-test, 13% of the treatment group confessed they had given in and used Facebook. It was either due to an emergency or failure to break habit, the group claimed.

This article originally appeared on The Independent.