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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

(www.nber.org)
506 points imakwana | 1 comments | 21 Apr 25 04:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source
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nomilk ◴[21 Apr 25 05:58 UTC] No.43748834[source]▶
The surprise here is how little of an effect it has. Deactivating facebook makes you only 1/16th of one standard deviation happier. And instagram even less. And this was measured during elections, when the effect is likely to be greatest.

Kinda crazy that the magnitude is so small! (my next [admittedly rather cynical] thought is "who funded this?")

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1. noisy_boy ◴[21 Apr 25 17:58 UTC] No.43754629[source]▶
I think social media has some sort of amplifier effect. If you are someone easily influenced, you'll be a lot more affected compared to someone who is more of a sceptic. If you are already depressed, it'll probably make it worse when you see holiday pictures of everyone in your network (no one shares pictures where they look like shit). If you are in a good place in life, you'll probably be smashing the like button without care.

In any case I didn't like the amplification - unamplified life is hard enough - so I got rid of it a long time ago and don't regret it at all.