Facebook beats face look

In research news this week, we’ve been reading the journals so you don’t have to. Apparently, clicking on a Facebook “like” helps your friends’ self-esteem.

Jeffrey Hancock, associate professor of communication at Cornell University, published Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall in journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking last week, the record of an experiment where 63 students were either left alone, given a mirror to stare into, or their own Facebook page to look at.

Afterwards, the ones who were on Facebook had significantly higher self-esteem than those who were looking at their own bored faces.

“This is one of the first studies to show that there is a psychological benefit of Facebook,” says Hancock – which presupposes that feeling happy with yourself is more important than confronting reality.