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People Who Use Facebook Live Longer, Study Finds (www.cbc.ca)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: Study after study has demonstrated a link between strong social connections and reduced mortality risk. But does that hold true as our social interactions increasingly take place in online spheres? A new study out of Yale and the University of California suggests that it does. The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who use Facebook live longer than those who do not, and that certain types of Facebook activities -- like posting pictures and accepting friend requests -- are associated with a lower risk of mortality. "There's a big debate about online social media. There are people that worry that worry it substitutes for healthy social interaction," co-author James Fowler, a social scientist from University of California, San Diego, told CBC News. The researchers started with 12 million Facebook profiles, then narrowed it down to four million people whose identities could be verified through California's voter registration list. Then they used data from the California Department of Public Health to compare those people to voters who don't use the social networking platform. They found the risk of dying in a given year was 12 per cent lower for Facebook users than non-Facebook users. That doesn't mean Facebook is necessarily good for you, Fowler cautions. Correlation does not prove causation, so it's impossible to say whether being on Facebook makes you healthier, or whether healthy people are more likely to be on Facebook. Still, Fowler said the study does help debunk some of the negative associations people have with social media. "The fact that we found such a strong positive relationship between health and social networks speaks against the hypothesis that they're making us unhealthy in some way," he said.
I imagine they would live a fairly long time.
Facebook is too young to do such a study reliably, unless, of course, by "people" you mean mice. A properly done study would take a group and randomly assign members to a control group (no social media) and an experimental group (mandatory social media), and then wait for people to start dying.
Or, intentionally dishonest advertisement?
Strong social connections are real-life meaningful relationships of people who are willing to help you in time of need. This is not the same thing as Facebook "friends".
What kind of shitty article is this?
Facebook hasn't been around long enough to do mortality studies on those who used it and those who didn't use it throughout their life.
But is the extra time they live sufficient to compensate for the time they've wasted on Facebook?
Facebook hasn't been around long enough for any conclusive study.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Only old people use Facebook.
This study is biased in that people who die young are unlikely to reach the age where thefacebook.com is the place to move your myspace activities to.
Holy Shit.
I've been coming here since before the turn-of-the-century.
Whoever is responsible for this should be profoundly ashamed.
The single dumbest thing I've ever seen here.
Wow.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Turns out people who exist maintain their existence for longer than those who fail to exist.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
I agree with the fact that strong social connections is NOT generally the same as Facebook friends.
But there's so much more, I don't even know what to say about TFS. Basically, if they're looking at people who have a high chance of dying, they're looking at folks above the age of 70 or so, and these people likely didn't start using Facebook until they were in their late 60s. Automatically, somebody who is that old but active on Facebook (note TFS mentions things like "posting pictures") is probably more tech-savvy and thus probably in better mental health than lots of folks that age. (My experience with my parents and others in that age group is that many can barely figure out how to turn a computer or tablet on or off.)
And then you need to consider what active Facebook participation probably means about health in general. If you're dying of cancer and have lost your hair, or if you're wasting away due to a long-term degenerative disease making you look like a skeleton, or you have uncontrollable drooling, or whatever... are you seriously going to be posting Facebook photos? Lots of people still have some sense of pride about themselves when they get old, and they get depressed and withdrawn if they deteriorate physically enough. If they're actively posting photos on Facebook, they're probably less likely to be dying of something soon.
And then you have this nonsense:
"The fact that we found such a strong positive relationship between health and social networks speaks against the hypothesis that they're making us unhealthy in some way," he said.
Well, most of the claims about why Facebook is "unhealthy" has to do with things like (1) it takes up spare time so you're not as likely to do stuff like be active, do something better for your body or brain, etc., or (2) Facebook substitutes for more personal interactions like seeing and talking face-to-face, etc.
Except with people who are likely to die (mostly older people), they're probably sitting around in their recliners anyway for a lot of the day, so ANYTHING that gets their brain a little more active is probably better. And for those who have difficulty moving around (again, a lot of old people), this may actually be a good way for them to have both intellectual stimulation and social contact that they might have no other easy way of getting.
Or, to put it more starkly -- for an 18-year-old, Facebook might keep them isolated in a room doing no exercise or other mentally stimulating activity, which might be bad. For an 80-year-old, they're already stuck in a room and unable to do exercise or socialize, so having Facebook is BETTER than default for them.
I don't know. I'm not saying social media is evil either. But even if this study found correlations, they could mean just about anything. They certainly can't be applied to "debunk some of the negative associations people have with social media," which aren't generally about its use for geriatric social therapy.
That would be Yale and the University of California.