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Research shows taking a break from social media for a few days will make you happier

Research performed by the Danish Happiness Research Institute found that taking time away from th...
Newstalk
Newstalk

12.01 12 Nov 2015


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Research shows taking a break...

Research shows taking a break from social media for a few days will make you happier

Newstalk
Newstalk

12.01 12 Nov 2015


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Research performed by the Danish Happiness Research Institute found that taking time away from the world of social media can help to improve your mood. 

The study looked at 1,095 people who used Facebook daily, ranging in ages from 16 to 76-years-old, and found that there were positive effects from giving up social media for even a short period.

The project split people up into two different groups, giving one half access to the site, while the other group were forced to go cold turkey and do without their usual fix of updates and interactions. 

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The results showed that those in the latter group felt, on average 55% less stressed after taking a break from social networking. 

Explaining the findings to The Guardian, Researcher Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute said "we look at a lot of data on happiness and one of the things that often comes up is that comparing ourselves to our peers can increase dissatisfaction". 

He added that Facebook provided a constant stream of everyone else's good news and their (heavily-filtered) best side, which can make their lives "seem even more distortedly bright by contrast, so we wanted to see what happened when users took a break".

Subjects in the study "reported higher levels of life satisfaction and better concentration, as well as feeling less lonely, less stressed and more sociable", and even took up antiquated activities such as talking to people in real life. 

Wiking is keen to expand on the research, saying that he would like to see the effects over the space of a year, but added that it might be more difficult to get volunteers for that one. 

Via The Guardian


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