Deleting your Facebook may increase your well-being but reduce your political knowledge

Amid widely shared concerns that social media makes people unhappy, spreads misinformation, and polarizes societies, researchers paid randomly selected participants to deactivate their Facebook accounts during an election, then compared them to a randomly selected group that continued using Facebook.

Their study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, directly replicated and extended previous research by sending some participants messages nudging them to be more informed, civil, and open-minded. In the end, these informational messages had little impact.

Deactivating your Facebook social media account might slightly increase your well-being, but reduce your political knowledge, according to the researchers.

As part of their study, 1,117 people voluntarily deactivated their Facebook accounts during the 2022 French Presidential Election. The team surveyed the participants about their mood and well-being, political knowledge, and level of political and social polarization during the election, and compared their results with 1,129 people who did not deactivate their accounts.

They found that people who deactivated their accounts reported having slightly higher well-being, but lower political knowledge. However, they did find that people’s level of political and social polarization did not change despite deactivating their Facebook account.