content on social networks including Facebook 'may threaten subjective
well-being'
New research finds that social networks including Facebook "may
threaten subjective well-being" by eroding a user's trust in the rest
of society with exposure to homophobic, racist or misogynistic
content.
Scientists from the Sapienza University of Rome and the Institut
National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques du Grand-Duché du
Luxembourg explored survey data from 50,000 people in 24,000 Italian
households which looked at internet and social network use, as well as
self-reported levels of happiness and self-esteem.
They found that social networks increased the risk of being exposed to
"offensive behaviours and hate speech", which could have a harmful
effect on people's mental wellbeing.
"In online discussions with unknown others, individuals more easily
indulge in aggressive and disrespectful behaviours. Online networks
also are a fertile ground for spreading harmful, offensive, or
controversial contents often lying at the verge between free speech
and hate speech," they said.
This hateful content can reduce the reader's trust in others, and
therefore have a detrimental effect on their own wellbeing - social
trust has been shown to be one of the strongest predictors of
self-reported happiness in previous studies.
The results add weight to previous research which found that social
networks can decrease people's happiness and general satisfaction with
their lives.
For two weeks a group of 82 people were sent text messages five times
a day and asked to reply explaining how they felt that moment, and
also how satisfied they were with their lives overall.
What the researchers found was that using Facebook tended to lower the
results for both questions.
"The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt
the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over
two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over
time," said the paper.
"On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for
fulfilling the basic human need for social connection," said Ethan
Kross, a social psychologist who led the work at the University of
Michigan. "But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook
use predicts the opposite result - it undermines it."
Currently Facebook has over a bilion users, 500 million of whom
interact with the social network every day through the website or
apps.
Culled from telegraph.co.uk
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