ArticleRoyal Society open science2023
Estimating the association between Facebook adoption and well-being in 72 countries.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cyber behaviour and personality nexus: clustering around security attitudes, FoMO, problematic social media use, and cognitive and personality traits?Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- Social technology use and life satisfaction in a five-wave panel study of US adults.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Why social media research has failed policy-makers.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Quality Analysis of YouTube and Facebook Videos for Glaucoma Treatment Options.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Navigating youth, smartphones, and policy: a balanced perspective on digital wellbeing.Pediatric research · 2025Article
- Debate: What guidance is needed by academics who collaborate with digital companies to improve youth mental health?Child and adolescent mental health · 2025Article
- Article
- Adolescent Social Media Use and Mental Health in the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Study.The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · 2025Article
- Ten Myths About the Effect of Social Media Use on Well-Being.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social media's potential effects on well-being have received considerable research interest, but much of past work is hampered by an exclusive focus on demographics in the Global North and inaccurate self-reports of social media engagement. We describe associations linking 72 countries' Facebook adoption to the well-being of 946 798 individuals from 2008 to 2019. We found no evidence suggesting that the global penetration of social media is associated with widespread psychological harm: Facebook adoption predicted life satisfaction and positive experiences positively, and negative experiences negatively, both between countries and within countries over time. Nevertheless, the observed associations were small and did not reach a conventional 97.5% one-sided credibility threshold in all cases. Facebook adoption predicted aspects of well-being more positively for younger individuals, but country-specific results were mixed. To move beyond studying aggregates and to better understand social media's roles in people's lives, and their potential causal effects, we need more transparent collaborative research between independent scientists and the technology industry.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.