Much has been said about the thrill of seeking validation on social media, but a new study suggests those likes you are trying to rack up on sites such as Facebook have no effect on your overall mood.
According to preliminary research from the University of South Wales, those thumbs-up or heart notifications on Facebook and Twitter do not make much of a difference when it comes to feeling happy.
In fact the study, which was presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Brighton, found that people who went to extremes to receive more attention, like for example going as far as paying or asking others to like their posts, were more likely to suffer from low self-esteem.
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The researchers studied 340 participants from Twitter and Facebook who answered questions about their personality traits. In addition, they also completed questionnaires that asked them to what extent they agreed with certain statements relating to the ways people appreciate being valued on social media.
Analysis revealed that participants who said they went out of their way to get more likes were more likely to have low self-esteem and be less trusting.
The same was also true for who admitted deleting posts or making a profile picture based on the number of likes it received.
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The results also showed that getting likes didn’t actually make people feel any better about themselves or lift their mood when they were feeling low.
“The proliferation of social media use has led to general concerns about the effects on our mental health,” study author Dr Martin Graff said.
“Although this is just a relatively small-scale study, the results indicate that the ways we interact with social media can affect how we feel, and not always positively.”
