NEWS in SCIENCE
Is Facebook Keeping You Alive?
By S.S.
Social media is something that has taken our world by storm. It is very rare that someone doesn’t know what Facebook is, let alone not have an account themselves. Social media has become a very important part of the way we communicate with each other. From previous research, scientists have found that people who have more friends and social connections tend to live longer than those who do not. But does the same apply to a social media following? A recent study shows that could be possible.
The study looked at the California voting records. From these records, they made comparisons between voters who used Facebook and those who did not. The study found that for a given year, the Facebook users had 12% less chance of dying.
Though an interesting fact, there are issues. Many factors could throw the results of this study because there is no way to control socioeconomic factors, or more simply, how we live. And, there is little information about the population that doesn’t use Facebook. Also, there is no way to rule out that ill people started using Facebook to update loved ones or that Facebook draws in healthy users for no known reason. The study also found that those with the most accepted friendship requests had a lower death rate. However, there is no relationship between the death rate and sent friend requests.
The results of this study link the use of Facebook to a lower morality rate. Overall, those who use social media tend to be in better health and die less than those who don’t. The results challenge the general thought that social media has a bad effect on it users’ health.
So, if you’re addicted to social media, don’t worry! It could make you live longer.
Hobbs, W. R. et al. (2016), Online social integration is associated with reduced morality risk. PNAS. 113, 12980–12984, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1605554113
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/46/12980.full?sid=25e54f94-35d5-4f9e-a308-63b38aafb3b4
Fazio and Zon (2017). Fishing for answers in precision cancer medicine. PNAS 114(39). 10306-10308.26 Sept 2017. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/14/1713769114
Please send any questions or comments to Dr. Spitzer (spitzern@marshall.edu )
Note: Any opinions expressed in these articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of Dr. Spitzer, the Department of Biological Sciences, or Marshall University.