New study finds Facebook makes us unhappy

If you want to be happier, less angry and less lonely, then give up Facebook according to a study in Copenhagen.

Researchers at the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen found life satisfaction rose significantly in the space of a week if people logged off Facebook.

More than a thousand people took part in the study in Denmark, half of them continued to use Facebook as normal the other half were unable to read their friends updates.

After one week, the second group were far happier, less angry, less lonely and they also reported an increase in 'real world social activity'.

Meik Wiking is head of the Happiness Institute and he explains why they thought to do this experiment.

“We know that people care more about relative income, so how much you are making compared to your neighbours, instead of actual income so we wanted to test how does social media like Facebook affect how we evaluate our lives.

“Because social media is this constant flow of great news that happens everybody else, everytime I log onto Facebook somebody is getting married somebody is getting a great job in New York, somebody is going to Bali.”