New study found having over 300 friends on Facebook cause stress in teenagers.
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Yet, this is not the first study that found a drawback of social media. From smartphones to super performant computers and other gadgets, the need to be permanently connected is imperative.
The researchers wrote the study will serve as preliminary proof that social media behaviors have links with daytime cortisol concentrations among teenagers. The reverse of the medal is that it also leaves room for fabricated identities or cyberbullying, in addition to exposure to content and reactions that may be malicious.
Facebook can help friends stay connected and may even boost an individual’s self-esteem.
The results come shortly after a recent Danish study by the Happiness Research Institute, which found that participants who gave up Facebook for a week reported feeling happier and more satisfied with their lives than the group who were still using the social networking site, with the study’s researchers concluding that the Facebook users were 39% more likely to feel less happy than those abstaining. The data involved their frequency of usage, number of Facebook friends, level of self-promoting behavior and level of encouraging behavior they extend to friends in social media. Lead researcher Lupien said that cortisol level increase was also due to a few external factors but the study was able to show that adolescents showed higher cortisol levels when they had beyond 300 Facebook friends.
Teens who act in ways that support their Facebook friends – for example, by liking what they posted or sending them words of encouragement – decreased their levels of cortisol.
The samples were taken four times a day for three days.
The team, however, was quick to point out that they are not indicating Facebook for the elevated cortisol levels, and there are other factors that could be coming into play. “The sale of self-help books generated over $10 billion in profits in 2009 in the U.S., which is a good reason to find out if they have a real impact on readers”, said Sonia Lupien, Director of the Centre of Studies on Human Stress (CSHS).
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“However, our results show that while consumers of certain types of self-help books secrete higher levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) when confronted with stressful situations, consumers of another type of self-help books show higher depressive symptomatology compared to non-consumers”, she said.
