14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is supposedly meant to help us keep tabs on other people. Still, a new study claims that roughly 90% of the individuals who have a Facebook account also access the site to stare at their own wall posts and make themselves feel better by doing so.
Furthermore, it appears that almost 75% of all Facebook users occasionally look at their own photos and find that this puts them into a better mood.
The specialists behind this inquiry into how Facebook impacts on people's psychological wellbeing say that some users' habit of revisiting their own posts and photos leads to their finding it significantly easier to shake off negative feelings, simply because this allows them to remember the good old days.
According to Mirror, Dr. Alice Good of the University of Portsmouth made the following observations concerning the link between Facebook and some people's good or bad mood:
“Facebook is marketed as a means of communicating with others. Yet this research shows we are more likely to use it to connect with our past selves, perhaps when our present selves need reassuring.”
Furthermore, “The pictures we often post are reminders of a positive past event. When in the grip of a negative mood, it is too easy to forget how good we often feel. Our positive posts can remind us of this.”
Ironically enough, this study claiming that Facebook improves on people's mood was published shortly after one other team of researchers went through the trouble of pointing out the fact that said social network did no more and no less than promote negative feelings amongst those who used it on a fairly regular basis.
Due to the fact that Dr. Alice Good and her colleagues only interviewed 144 Facebook users prior to their concluding that the site improved on people's mood, it is very well possible that their findings are not all that reliable.
“Although this was only a small study, we will go on to study larger groups to see if the results remain consistent,” Dr. Alice Good said.
Should a larger-scale research yield the same results, Facebook might soon be labeled as an efficient means to fight back medical conditions such as depression and anxiety.