© Edvard March/Corbis
Browsing around when you’re bored on Facebook isn’t nearly as rewarding as searching for a specific friend, group or event, according to new research from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Now that some 350 million people worldwide have Facebook accounts, more researchers are eager to learn what the social, emotional and cognitive impact of spending time poking through profiles may be.
This most recent inquiry, conducted by strategic communication Kevin Wise, study participants were asked to sit in front of computers and log in to Facebook for a set window of time. During that time, subjects were told they could browse, chat, send messages or interact however the liked, but they had to stay logged on to Facebook. To track their movements on the site, Wise used screen capturing software. To measure their emotional reactions to the content onscreen, Wise outfitted participants bodies with several sensors. Wise said that people were most emotionally engaged when searching for a specific person, group or event, compared with merely browsing through the news feed, for example. Participants also spent significantly more time conducting specific searches, and not just browsing around.