In another paper published this year, researchers in the United Arab Emirates asked a group of students to quit social media for seven days, while another group stayed on as usual. Other studies have also pointed to some drawbacks of taking a Facebook break.

They were obviously missing out on news shared by their Facebook friends, and they didn’t seem to be seeking it out elsewhere. During their Facebook break, people consumed less news on social media in general. Over the course of the week, men who quit also felt less depression.Īt the same time, the study illustrated one important role that social media play in our modern world-and what people miss out on when they quit. Instead of scrolling Facebook for two hours a day, the quitters had more time to exercise and cook healthier foods at home they also made fewer impulse purchases and saved more money. Participants who quit Facebook for a week in a 2019 study also used the extra time to do different things, particularly the men. But-mysteriously!-I did find the time to listen to an 11-hour audiobook. I, too, didn’t notice any major psychological changes as a result of my one-week sabbatical. They also spent nearly two hours longer connecting with people face-to-face on the Sunday during the study-and the more time they spent with other humans, the better they felt. Although they didn’t notice any changes in their stress levels, their cortisol (a stress-related hormone that was measured before and after the study) declined. But below the surface, something positive seemed to be happening to the Facebook quitters. Over the course of the study, people who stayed on Facebook had greater gains in how satisfied they felt with life. Their predictions were right-but only partly. When asked to predict what the experience would be like, the quitters weren’t too optimistic. About half of them were given a challenge: Quit Facebook for five days. In a 2018 study, researchers recruited nearly 140 people between the ages of 18 and 40 who were spending an average of nearly three hours per day on Facebook. I had reasons to be uncertain about how my social media sabbatical would play out. That certainly turned out to be the case for me! The pros and cons of a Facebook sabbatical Our relationship with Facebook, it seems, has become a “Can’t live with it, can’t live without it” situation. They’re finding that while breaks help some people in some ways, they hurt other people in others. Plus, of course, there’s the monumental question of privacy.įacebook breaks are so popular that researchers are now studying what happens to people when they disconnect, and whether it can solve some of the psychological woes that are increasingly being attributed to technology.

At some point, the endless reel of photos and posts can become exhausting.

Others find the food pics, the glamorous selfies, and the flame wars to be a bore or a burden. Some people take a Facebook break because-like any bad habit-it’s sucking up their time and detracting from other things they could be doing.

Take a break from facebook dating