Implicit in your statement is the proposition that quitters are a self-selected group of people with a disordered consumption pattern - a moderate social drinker is not going to quit.

But I do recall an instance where everyone in some college class or something were supposed to abstain from social media for a week, whether they had a healthy relationship with it or not and the group reported substantial increases in life satisfaction.

Without a reference, this comment doesn’t indicate anything.

If I asked you to abstain from any behavior for a week to see if it would improve your life... I bet most studies would show abstention helped.

The relevant question is how this intervention helped, compared to other interventions that could be seen as similar. Eg, if you didn’t watch tv for a week, how would you feel?

I don't have a TV, I only watch at other peoples places. I think I'd feel worse if I became "that guy" and started having issues with it.

I don't get how alcohol quitters experience more life satisfaction, less depression, and anxiety.

(Also, worst Oxford comma ever...)

Actually, those who drink in moderation are more successful and happy than those who quit.

So what you're saying is people without an addiction are happier than people who are addicted? Shocking stuff

What I'm saying is that the analogy of alcohol is not helpful.

Social Networking is not inherently toxic, and quitting many things: sugar, television, even meat, might have the similar effects for some small group of people.

In fact, the entire thread is based on three levels of indirection of misinformation: the Bloomberg article misquoted the paper, and the short-summary referencing Bloomberg made it worse.

Here is the summary of the findings [1]:

"We find that deactivating Facebook for the four weeks before the 2018 US midterm election (i) reduced online activity while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use"

So that's a little bit more information now isn't it? And completely conflates the Facebook/wellbeing issue with a host of other things.

Most poignantly, stopping Facebook usage reduced the amount of factual knowledge a person had access too. So maybe that's not so good?

Maybe by 'removing Facebook' people are simply a little bit more removed from the issues of the day (like elections) many of which can be contentious.

So 'ignorance is bliss' is the result of the study? Or is it really something materially related to Social Networking.

I think we'll need to do some more studying to find out.

[] http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf

Or that people who perceive themselves as doing something unhealthy may feel better in a short window after they make a change they think will makes them happier?

How can we distinguish the effect from a general “I’m making a change” groundswell of feel goodery?

I believe they have re-run the study or further examined it and determined that the causality is reversed.

Picking up moderate drinking isn't going to make you healthier / more successful.

It's just that successful people tend to be healthier and also are more likely to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

If this is the case, quitting drinking will still not likely yield 'more happiness' ergo, the fact remains.