Spending a few minutes peeking at one’s Facebook profile reportedly elevates a person’s self-esteem but reduces their ambition to excel, according to researchers.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison study that unearthed these social-media phenomena seemingly employed a controversial cognitive test to arrive at its findings, and also discovered the Facebook-borne ego boost lead to diminished ambition, or the desire to excel on subsequent cognitive evaluations.
The study, “Self-affirmation underlies Facebook use,” was published in the June issue of the Journal of Media Psychology and was conducted by a team led by Catalina Toma. Toma is a UW-Madison assistant professor of communication arts.
“Most have a very large audience of friends and they selectively present the best version of self, but they do so in an accurate manner,” Toma told ABC News of typical Facebook profiles.
Read also:
Feeling Low? Look at Your Facebook… (ABC News)
Facebook May Boost Self Esteem But Reduce Motivation (Medical News Today)
Facebook may boost your self-esteem (Economic Times)
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