Facebook addiction can leave you lonely, depressed

Do you often feel you have wasted time on Facebook or termed it as a meaningless activity but still cannot let your eyes move away from the screen? You are at the risk of developing depression.

According to new research, while the social networking site is there to help you stay in touch with your near and dear ones, there are consequences to its consistent use, including a "lowered life satisfaction of basic psychological needs and dampened mood".

"There is a link between a dampened mood and Facebook," informed Austrian psychologists Christina Sagioglou and Tobias Greitmeyer.

During the three-phase study, they first analysed 123 German speaking active Facebook users.

Most of them showed a mood decline after spending time on Facebook, including a sense of growing loneliness.

In the second phase, 263 people volunteered through Amazon's Mechanical Turk programme.

The findings once again displayed a mood decline in those visiting Facebook.

In the last phase, 101 active Facebook users were asked if logging into Facebook would make them happier or feel down.

Most of the participants reported feeling worse and lonelier when they logged off, Viral Global News reported.

The paper was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.