Facebook Use and Individual Well-Being : Like Me to Make Me Happier!

This paper aims to study how Facebook use influences individual well-being. We use a survey conducted on a representative sample of 2,000 French Facebook users. Our results show that Facebook interferes with subjective well-being through its effects on friendships and self-esteem. Hence we find a positive relation between receiving a great number of Likes and comments from Facebook friends and the level of life satisfaction. By contrast, people that would like to receive more Likes tend to be more unsatisfied with their life. The latter result suggests that Facebook use can exacerbate frustration and envy. Finally, the time spent on Facebook, the intensity of online interactions as well as the number of Facebook friends have no direct impact on life satisfaction. All these findings underlines the ambivalence of Facebook use with both positive and negative psychological effects on well-being