Facebook’s emotional consequences: Why Facebook causes a decrease in mood and why people still use it

•Facebook activity negatively correlates with mood.•Facebook use but not Internet browsing dampens mood.•A feeling of having wasted time accounts for the effect of Facebook activity on mood.•People commit a forecasting error by expecting to feel better after Facebook use.

Facebook is the world’s most popular online social network and used by more than one billion people. In three studies, we explored the hypothesis that Facebook activity negatively affects people’s emotional state. A first study shows that the longer people are active on Facebook, the more negative is their mood afterwards. The second study provides causal evidence for this effect by showing that Facebook activity leads to a deterioration of mood compared to two different control conditions. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that this effect is mediated by a feeling of not having done anything meaningful. With such negative outcomes for its users, the question arises as to why so many people continue to use Facebook on a daily basis. A third study suggests that this may be because people commit an affective forecasting error in that they expect to feel better after using Facebook, whereas, in fact, they feel worse.