Facebook And Happiness
London: Sociologists Hui-Tzu Grace Chou and Nicholas Edge interviewed 425
undergraduate students about their happiness and that of their friends.
The participants were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with
statements such as “Life is fair” and “many of my friends have a better life
than me”.
They then described their Facebook activity including their number of
“friends” and the proportion of them they actually knew.
Ninety-five percent used Facebook, and on an average they had been there
for two and a half years and spent nearly five hours a week on it.
After allowing for gender, religiosity and whether people were single or
attached, the study found that “the more hours people spent on Facebook,
the stronger was their agreement that others were happier”.
This was particularly true of Facebook users who stockpiled “friends” they
did not actually know. Those who had used Facebook for longer were also
“significantly” likely to agree with statement “life is unfair”.
Conversely, the study found that people who spent more time actually
socialize with friends in the flesh were less likely to feel they had been
handed life‟s short straw.
Chou argues that this Facebook-related dissatisfaction is the result of a
common psychological process known as “correspondence bias”, in which
one draws false conclusions about people based on limited knowledge.
“Looking at happy pictures of others on Facebook gives people an impression
that others are „always‟ happy and having good lives,” the Daily Mail quoted
Chou as saying.
ANI