Study Finds That People Who Use Social Media More Are Less Happy

I found an article about a study done at the University of Michigan regarding the link between social media use and feelings of happiness and loneliness. Without completely reciting how the study was done (this can be found in the article) the basic idea of the study was that the researchers would periodically survey the participants asking about their levels of happiness, loneliness and other feelings. They then tried to link the results of the survey to the person’s use of social media. They ended up finding that people with more social media use tended to be lonelier and less happy compared to those with less or no social media usage.

                This is a study of qualitative research. This is because the topic that the researchers are measuring (emotions) are measured through words and expressions, not numbers. This study is in the realm of the less mathematical side of things and involves more judgment on part of the participants and researchers since what’s being tested is in words, not hard data. This approach leads to some potential concerns with the study such as how accurate people can really portray their feelings and the uniformity of how they are portrayed between people.  There are also many other factors that can contribute to someone’s happiness that can’t be controlled for. Overall it seems as if the researchers did take some good steps and procedures to lend some credibility to the results but the basis of feelings being tested leads to these concerns.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2419419/All-lonely-Facebook-friends-Study-shows-social-media-makes-MORE-lonely-unhappy-LESS-sociable.html