The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users’ Emotional State
We estimate the effect of social media deactivation on users’ emotional state in two large randomized experiments before the 2020 US election. People who deactivated Facebook for the six weeks before the election reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, depression, and anxiety, relative to controls who deactivated for just the first of those six weeks. People who deactivated Instagram for those six weeks reported a 0.041 standard deviation improvement relative to controls. Exploratory analysis suggests that the Facebook effect is driven by people over 35, while the Instagram effect is driven by women under 25. (JEL D12, D91, I31, J16, L82)
Authors
- Matthew Aaron Gentzkow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7758-8656)
- Arjun S. Wilkins (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5315-356X)
- Natalie Jomini Stroud (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3528-9986)
- Hunt Allcott
- Joshua Aaron Tucker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1321-8650)
- Winter Mason (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1269-8947)
- Benjamin Wittenbrink
- US 2020 Facebook & Instagram Election Study Collective
Institutions
- Meta (United States) (US)
- New York University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- American Economic Journal Economic Policy
- Published
- 2026-10-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20240806
- Primary Topic
- Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00