The impact of social media on life satisfaction

In England, a lot of time and attention is paid to discussing the negative impact of social networks. Many of the UK’s leading private schools recommend that parents strictly limit their children’s time spent on a computer and smartphone. There is a well-established opinion that in the period of preparation for exams it is necessary to minimize the communication of the student on social networks.

A study of 12,000 British teenagers found no serious link between the use of social media and the satisfaction of their lives. The influence is rather divergent, often not significant at all. However, there is a dependence on the age group and methods of analysis.

Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute spent eight years comprehensively studying all the data obtained to determine the amount of time spent by schoolchildren on social networks during a typical school day and their satisfaction with life.

This is the first large, deep, quite representative study that takes into account not only the negative feedback of young people about low satisfaction with their own lives, but also the reverse side of the coin. That is, as it turned out, not a few young people on the contrary are more satisfied with their lives thanks to the time spent on social networks! Before that, scientists in principle did not understand what exactly is the primary source of the problem. Either teenagers with low life satisfaction are more likely to use social media, or “hanging” on social networks has such a negative impact on fragile minds.

The authors of the study emphasize that this study is an important step in studying the impact of social networks on the life of modern people. Due to the dramatic technological leap of recent decades, it is simply necessary to understand the extent of the impact of the new environment on people’s health and quality of life.

Using transparent and innovative statistical methods, the authors of this study have shown that the effect of social couples is not a one-way street. Influence can be divergent, depending on gender, habitat, financial aspect, but in general rather have little impact on the feeling of life.