Study: Facebook Could Have Positive Effects On Self-Esteem, Behavior
MENLO PARK, Calif. (CBS Sacramento) - Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that users of Facebook are benefiting psychologically from participating on the social networking site.
The study, which gauged the effects of looking at one's own profile on the Menlo Park, Calif., based site using the Implicit Association Test, found that such activity could result in higher self-esteem.
The Implicit Association Test "measures how quickly participants associate positive or negative adjectives with words such as me, my, I and myself," a release on the school's website explained.
"If you have high self-esteem, then you can very quickly associate words related to yourself with positive evaluations but have a difficult time associating words related to yourself with negative evaluations," communication arts assistant professor Catalina Toma was quoted as saying. "But if you have low self-esteem, the opposite is true."
Tests administered both before and after study participants looked at their own profile showed subjects exhibiting more confidence, as well as more self-affirmation, afterwards.
"This study shows that exposure to your own Facebook profile reduces motivation to perform well in a simple, hypothetical task," Toma said. "It does not show that Facebook use negatively affects college students' grades, for example."
She added, "Future work is necessary to investigate the psychological effects of other Facebook activities, such as examining others' profiles or reading the news feed."
The results of the study will be published in this month's issue of Media Psychology, the release noted.
