Having more friends on Facebook actually causes more stress for teens, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Montreal. The study is among the first of its kind in the growing field of cyberpsychology that evaluated the effect of Facebook on a person's well-being.
The researchers took 88 participants ages 12 to 17 years old and evaluated them based on four factors: how often they use Facebook, how many friends they have, their self-promoting behavior and their supporting behavior or liking friends' posts. They took samples of the stress hormone cortisol from the participants four times a day for three days.
The researchers found that those who had more than 300 friends on the social networking site had higher levels of cortisol, indicating that they suffered from greater stress. They emphasized, however, that Facebook activity was not the only factor driving the levels of cortisol in the participants.
"While other important external factors are also responsible, we estimated that the isolated effect of Facebook on cortisol was around eight percent," Sonia Lupien, lead study author, said in a press release. "We were able to show that beyond 300 Facebook friends, adolescents showed higher cortisol levels; we can therefore imagine that those who have 1,000 or 2,000 friends on Facebook may be subjected to even greater stress."
None of the participants suffered from depression at the time of the study, but Lupien noted this did not mean the participants were not at risk of developing depression.
"Adolescents who present high stress hormone levels do not become depressed immediately; it can occur later on," she explained, adding that based on previous studies, it could take 11 years for depression to set in for children who have consistently high levels of cortisol.
"The preliminary nature of our findings will require refined measurement of Facebook behaviors in relation to physiological functioning and we will need to undertake future studies to determine whether these effects exist in younger children and adults," Lupien said. "Developmental analysis could also reveal whether virtual stress is indeed 'getting over the screen and under the skin' to modulate neurobiological processes related to adaptation."
The study was published in the Oct. 8 online issue of the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
