Leaving Facebook seems to be in vogue at the moment, after the social network’s data collection policies have become more transparent.

But while there are good reasons to be on Facebook and good reasons to leave it, a team of researchers has been compiling evidence to see what happens when people stop signing in for awhile.

The team, from Stanford University in the US, paid some users to drop Facebook for a period of four weeks and asked others to give it up using just their own self-control.

The resulting study – The Welfare Effects of Social Media – has a few things to say about behaviour away from the social network.


Leaving Facebook for awhile has its benefits (Getty)

Specifically, they found four specific outcomes.



Firstly, when people gave up on Facebook they spent less time online in general. They didn’t just replace Facebook with something else but instead watched TV or spent time with family and friends. They also felt that they were less informed but also less politically polarized.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, the respondents found that they had slight improvements in their wellbeing. The study authors said there was ‘little evidence to support the hypothesis suggested by prior work that Facebook might be more beneficial for ‘active’ users.’

So posting more on Facebook rather than simply scrolling through doesn’t really make much difference.

Being active or passive on Facebook may not make much of a difference (Getty)

Also, a number of respondents who took part said they planned to spend less time on Facebook once the study had concluded.

However, while the researchers say that the downsides to using Facebook are real, overall it is a beneficial service to have at our disposal.

‘Our results leave little doubt that Facebook produces large benefits for its users. A majority of people in our sample value four weeks of access at $100 or more, and these valuations could imply annual consumer surplus gains in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone,’ the authors conclude.

‘The 60 minutes our participants spend on Facebook each day is itself suggestive of the substantial value it provides.’

Facebook is, overall, a beneficial service according to the study (Getty)

‘Our results on news consumption and knowledge suggest that Facebook plays an important role as a source of (real) news and information.

‘We find that four weeks without Facebook improves subjective well-being and substantially reduces post-experiment demand, suggesting that forces such as addiction and projection bias may cause people to use Facebook more than they otherwise would.

‘We find that while deactivation makes people less informed, it also makes them less polarized by at least some measures, consistent with the concern that social media have played some role in the recent rise of polarization in the US.’