Taking a break from Facebook and Instagram can boost emotional well-being

Temporarily deactivating Facebook or Instagram can improve emotional well-being, according to the largest experimental study on the effects of social media abstention conducted in partnership with Meta.

David Lazer, a Northeastern University distinguished professor of political science and computer sciences, is among the researchers behind the findings.

With over 35,000 participants, the study offers rare large-scale experimental insight into how short-term social media breaks affect mood and mental health. The study is published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The paper both resonates with some prior work and extends it,” Lazer says. “It highlights that there does seem to be a positive effect when you take people off of Facebook and/or Instagram.”

The researchers carried out two controlled trials as part of the study, recruiting nearly 20,000 Facebook users and 15,500 Instagram users. Participants were randomly assigned either to a treatment group—deactivating their accounts for six weeks from late September through Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020—or a control group that deactivated for just one week.

Having the control group deactivate briefly helped rule out effects caused by the deactivation process itself.

Participants completed surveys measuring self-reported happiness, depression and anxiety before and after the experiment.

“We found a clear improvement, especially among Facebook deactivators,” Lazer says.

Deactivating Facebook and Instagram before the election was, respectively, about 15% and 22% as effective as the average psychological intervention such as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.

The modest but meaningful improvement was seen across all three components of well-being. The benefits were more pronounced among Facebook users over age 35, undecided voters and people without college degrees.

The findings are particularly noteworthy for Instagram’s effect on young women ages 18–24. Statistically meaningful improvements in their well-being, Lazer says, could be related to the prior suggestions about young women’s sensitive perception of their body image.

Interestingly, Facebook deactivation didn’t lead to a major increase in offline activity. Instead, nearly all the freed-up time went to other digital platforms, with only about 9 minutes per day going offline.

Instagram deactivation resulted in all freed-up time being redirected to other apps such as Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, general web browsing, and other social media or non-categorized apps.

Facebook deactivation increased Instagram use by about 4 minutes per day, while Instagram deactivation didn’t significantly affect Facebook use.

“It’s remarkable that people are shifting to some other social media and that they’re still feeling better off not using Facebook or not using Instagram,” Lazer says.

This suggests that well-being improvements may stem not from reduced screen time, but from differences in user experiences across these two platforms.

The study’s findings align with growing concerns over social media’s role in declining mental health among young people—particularly college students and young women—as highlighted in research and the Office of the Surgeon General’s report.

Since the study took place during an election, researchers explored whether political content influenced the results. While more politically engaged users showed some signs of greater benefit, the difference was not statistically significant.

The study had several limitations: its effects may differ over longer periods of deactivation or outside of election seasons; the results relied on self-reported data; and there was uneven participant dropout between groups.

Lazer suggests that examining deactivation across different platforms and time frames could reveal how its effects on emotional well-being vary. This research could support targeted interventions and encourage changes in social media algorithm design.

“Are there ways of designing [algorithms] and empowering people to avoid content that makes them feel worse?” Lazer says. “Perhaps platforms will see that it’s better to have happy customers who don’t feel bad about themselves after they use the platform.”

This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News news.northeastern.edu.