WASHINGTON: Just two Facebook comments a day over a month from close friends may improve a person’s feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby, a new study has claimed.
However, passively reading posts or one-click feedback such as “likes” do not have these positive effects.
“We’re not talking about anything that’s particularly labour-intensive. This can be a comment that’s just a sentence or two,” said Moira Burke, a research scientist at Facebook.
“The important thing is that someone such as a close friend takes the time to personalise it,” said Burke, who earned a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the US.
“The content may be uplifting, and the mere act of communication reminds recipients of the meaningful relationships in their lives,” she added.
Sixty comments from close friends in a month were linked to increases in users’ psychological well-being as large as those associated with major life events, the study found.
The findings run counter to many previous studies based on user surveys, which have shown that time spent on social media is linked to greater likelihood of loneliness and depression.
“You’re left to wonder – is it that unhappy people are using social media, or is social media affecting happiness?” said Robert Kraut, a professor at CMU.
The new study resolved this “chicken-or-egg” dilemma by using Facebook logs to examine counts of participants’ actual Facebook activity over a period of months. (AGENCIES)
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