Brilio.net/en - Are you mostly stricken by envy or a non-existent social life? You might attribute these unfortunate feelings to Facebook according to a study carried out by the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark.
The study shows that people who have gone a week without Facebook reported feeling happier than others.
"We focused on Facebook because it is thesocial mediathat most people use acrossage groups," Meik Wiking,HRI'schief executivetold AFP Tuesday in Copenhagen, the Danish capital.
After a week removed from the social media giant, 88% of the people claimed that they were "happy" compared to 81% from the second group that still went on Facebook.
84% of the people not on Facebook for a week said they appreciated their life compared to 75% from the other group. Additionally, 12% of the no-Facebook people reported being dissatisfied compared to 20% in the other group.
At the end of the experiment abstainers reported haveing a richer social life and fewer difficulties in concentrating, while the others reported no change.
"Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have," the authors of the study wrote.
In conclusion, Facebook users are 39% more likely to feel unhappy than non-users.