London - Facebook and other social network sites can cause users to lose control and may lead to violence, obesity and debt.
Browsing for just five minutes on social networks can boost a user’s self-belief so much that they become more impulsive. Effects can include an increase in binge-eating, loss of concentration and lack of application, a US study showed.
Researchers are also concerned that the loss of control prompted by using Facebook could lead to social problems, such as aggression.
“Given that self-control is important for maintaining social order and personal well-being, this subtle effect could have a widespread impact,” the study warned.
“This is particularly true for adolescents and young adults who are the heaviest users of social networks and have grown up using them.”
Dr Andrew Stephen of the University of Pittsburgh, and Dr Keith Wilcox of Columbia University in New York, carried out the study with more than 1 000 Facebook users and said it was the first time it has been demonstrated that social networking sites could lead to loss of control.
They urged policymakers to investigate social network use to understand how people behave after using Facebook and other sites.
“We have demonstrated that using today’s most popular social network, Facebook, may have a detrimental effect on people’s self-control,” said Stephen.
The key to behavioural changes after using social networking sites is the way they boost a user’s feeling of self-worth.
For people who send and receive posts from many friends with whom they have “strong ties”, even using a site for a short time was observed to increase self-esteem.
This was thought to happen because the social conventions that prevent boasting in face-to-face meetings were weakened when posting online, the researchers said.
Users were also likely to focus on presenting positive images of themselves which were reinforced by supportive responses. Having had their self-esteem boosted, the self-control of users was weakened and resulted in different types of behaviour.
Volunteers taking part in one test were instructed either to spend a few minutes browsing social network sites or to look through CNN.com and TMZ.com.
Participants were then asked to choose between a healthy snack or a chocolate-chip cookie and it was found that those using social network sites were more likely to opt for the unhealthy option.
“Social network use enhanced self-esteem, making them more likely to make an unhealthy food choice compared to those who did not browse Facebook,” the academics reported in a paper titled Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control and published online in the Journal of Consumer Research.
A similar test in which volunteers were asked to solve anagrams after going online showed that the Facebook users were more likely to lose concentration and give up.
Researchers also asked volunteers questions to establish their body mass index, how many credit cards they had and what their levels of debt were.
“The results suggest that greater social network use is associated with a higher body-mass index, increased binge eating, a lower credit score and higher levels of credit card debt for individuals with strong ties to their social network,” the researchers found.
“This research advances our knowledge of social networks by demonstrating that (they) can have significant effects on consumer judgement and decision-making… Our research demonstrates that social network use may also have a detrimental effect on well-being by leading certain people to exhibit lower self-control.
“It would be worthwhile for researchers and policy makers to further explore social network use in order to better understand which consumers may be particularly vulnerable to suffering negative psychological or social consequences.” – Daily Mail
FACEBOOK FACTS
lFacebook has more than a billion users worldwide.
lMore than 166 million people use Facebook in the US, more than any other country.
lUsers spend more than 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook.
lMark Zuckerberg, the founder, is worth £5.8 billion (R90.4bn).