In general, we all understand that social media has a negative effect on people's emotions. Thus, by quitting social media, the opposite should be true; a person's emotional state should improve.
There have been studies done on this subject, including one that was released a few months ago. The actual study took place shortly before the 2020 US election (intentionally so, as you'll see). Here it is:
The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users’ Emotional State.
I'll quote the summary of the findings here, but you can also check out
the full PDF that includes their methods and other info:
"We estimate the effect of social media deactivation on users’ emotional state in two large randomized experiments before the 2020 U.S. election. People who deactivated Facebook for the six weeks before the election reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, depression, and anxiety, relative to controls who deactivated for just the first of those six weeks. People who deactivated Instagram for those six weeks reported a 0.041 standard deviation improvement relative to controls. Exploratory analysis suggests the Facebook effect is driven by people over 35, while the Instagram effect is driven by women under 25."
The PDF also explains:
"Our estimates suggest that deactivating Facebook or Instagram before the 2020 election improved people’s emotional state, although the Instagram effect is not significant at our preregistered threshold after adjusting for multiple hypothesis."
Interesting findings and I think it was good that this was tested in relation to a very divisive set of circumstances.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
