New Study: Lack Of Facebook Likes Makes One Feel Worse

It is none of a secret that in the last decade social media have been making a huge impact on our life, and the process continues.

While on the one hand Facebook users benefit from having the ability to express themselves, on the other hand they use the platform to define themselves, CBS News reports.

A new American study published in the journal Social Influence analyzes the interconnection between Facebook communication and one's perception of oneself. And the results are quite interesting.

According to the research, the more "likes" one receives, the better one feels about oneself, and vice versa.

Study, part 1

79 undergraduate students were involved in the experiment: some of them were allowed to share information on Facebook and some were not for the period of 2 days. In the end of the 48-hour term the participants from the second group showed "lower levels of belonging and meaningful existence".

Study, part 2

Half of the profiles were set up to ensure that participants would not receive any feedback on their status updates - the researchers secretly made their posts invisible to the public. Meanwhile another group posted statuses that the researchers rigged up to ensure they would receive substantial Facebook feedback.

Thus, some people under experiment were ordered to post and comments as usual, and some had no idea that they would not be receiving social interaction from their Facebook posts, or "snubbed."

The experiment showed that those, who were either weren't posting statuses or had no feedback, felt "invisible", while the others experienced the opposite feeling of self-belonging. 

Conclusion

The experiment showed that inability to share information and to receive feedback from Facebook users poses a big threat to our "belonging needs".

Source: Legit.ng