Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults

TLDR

Over 500 million people use Facebook daily, and it is often viewed as a valuable tool for satisfying basic social connection needs. The study aims to determine whether Facebook use affects subjective well‑being over time. Using experience‑sampling, participants were text‑messaged five times daily for two weeks to track moment‑to‑moment affect and life satisfaction relative to Facebook use. Facebook use predicts negative shifts in moment‑to‑moment affect and life satisfaction over time, with higher use linked to worse feelings and lower satisfaction, and these effects are not moderated by network size, support, motivation, gender, loneliness, self‑esteem, or depression.

Abstract

Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook. Yet, whether Facebook use influences subjective well-being over time is unknown. We addressed this issue using experience-sampling, the most reliable method for measuring in-vivo behavior and psychological experience. We text-messaged people five times per day for two-weeks to examine how Facebook use influences the two components of subjective well-being: how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their lives. Our results indicate that Facebook use predicts negative shifts on both of these variables over time. 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. Interacting with other people "directly" did not predict these negative outcomes. They were also not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.