Study Says Facebook is Depressing But Snapchat Makes You Happy

Has Facebook got you down? It’s hard to figure out why any of us use that washed website anymore, between people from high school posting low-key racist status updates and your mom liking every single one of your photos from 2009. There’s an alternative though, and it apparently makes you happier thanFacebook ever could.

A study by the University of Michigan looked at how 154 college students used their smartphones and found that, next to IRL hangs, the most “rewarding” communication happened through Snapchat. “On the surface, many people view Snapchat as the ‘sexting app,'” Joseph Bayer, the study’s lead author said in a statement. “But instead, we found that Snapchat is typically being used to communicate spontaneously with close friends in a new and often more enjoyable way.”

According to Tech Insider, the study was the first of its kind, asking questions like, “How pleasant or unpleasant was your most recent interaction?” and “How close are you to that person?” Communications on Snapchat were “associated with more positive emotions than Facebook and other social technologies,” according to the study. Snapchat is better than Facebook, at least to the study participants, because it is “self-presentational.” This means that its ephemeral nature—AKA the idea that the snaps are only viewable for a small amount of time—is key to allowing users to prevent smaller, more personal moments to everyone else.

I had a feeling that Facebook was depressing, but now it’s a fact. Thanks, science.

Got the drop on Complex . . .

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