Can quitting Facebook make you happier?

London: Can't even go 10 minutes without checking Facebook? What if you are told to give it up for 99 days? A Dutch non-profit wants you to do just that! In response to Facebook's controversial mood experiment involving some 700,000 unwitting users, a new initiative has launched an experiment of its own - determining how life without Facebook impacts user happiness.

 

The non-profit initiative "99 Days of Freedom" asks users 

to refrain from Facebook use for a period of 99 consecutive days and report-back on how the hiatus affects personal notions of happiness. The initiative's website provides a set of simple user instructions, which include posting a "time-off" image as a profile picture and starting a personalised, 99-day countdown clock.

 

From there, participants are asked to complete anonymous 

"happiness surveys" at the 33, 66 and 99-day marks, with results posted to the initiative's website as they're compiled. The initiative will also host a message board through which participants can post anonymous accounts of how an extended break from Facebook is impacting their lives.

 

The initiative is the brainchild of Just, a creative agency based in Leiden, The Netherlands. Just's Art Director, Merijn Straathof, explains how what began as an office joke quickly morphed into an officially-funded project.

 

"Like a lot of Facebook users, many of us were bothered by reports of secret mood experiments," said Straathof.

 

"As we discussed it internally, we noted an interesting tendency: To a person, everyone had at least a 'complicated' relationship with Facebook. Whether it was being tagged in unflattering photos, getting into arguments with other users or simply regretting time lost through excessive use, there was a surprising degree of negative sentiment."

 

"Then someone joked, 'I guess that the real question is, 'How do you feel when you don't use Facebook?' There was group laughter, followed by, 'Wait a second. That's a really good question!" he said.

 

According to Facebook, it's 1.2 billion users spend an average of 17 minutes per day on the site, reading updates, following links or browsing photos. Over a three-month period, that ads-up to more than 28-hours which, the initiative's creators contend, could be devoted to more emotionally fulfilling activities - learning a new skill, performing volunteer work or spending time (offline) with friends and family.

 

Although Straathof and his colleagues are eager to see the experiment's results, he stresses that the initiative is neither an anti-Facebook protest nor an attempt to harm the web's most popular site.