Facebook Users Live Longer: Researchers Claim Social Networks Can Increase Your Life Expectancy

Facebook users live longer - no matter how many "likes" you get, according to a study of 12 million users of the social network.

The investigation confirms what experts have known for a long time about the offline world: people who have stronger social networks live longer.

And the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents for the first time that what happens online may matter also.

The study was led by Doctor William Hobbs, who led the research as a University of California San Diego doctoral student in political science and is now a postdoctoral fellow at North Eastern University.

"Interacting online seems to be healthy when the online activity is moderate and complements interactions offline," he said.

"It is only on the extreme end, spending a lot of time connected with little evidence of being connected to people otherwise, that we see a negative association."

Senior author Professor James Fowler, of UC San Diego, said: "Happily, for almost all Facebook users, what we found is balanced use and a lower risk of mortality."

The researchers matched California Facebook users with vital records from the California Department of Public Health.

The researchers studied counts of online activity over six months, comparing the activity of those still living to those who had died. All of those premeditated were born between 1945 and 1989, and all the contrasts were made between people of similar age and gender.

The first discovery was that those who are on Facebook live lengthier than those who are not.

In a given year, the average Facebook user is about 12% less likely to die than someone who doesn't use the site.

Among people who do use Facebook, the researchers looked at numbers of friends, numbers of photos and status updates, numbers of wall posts sent and messages sent, to see if people who were more active lived longer.

People with average or large social networks, in the top 50 to 30 per cent, lived longer than those in the lowest 10 - a finding consistent with studies of offline relationships and longevity.

Those on Facebook with highest levels of offline social integration - as measured by posting more photos, which suggests face-to-face social activity - have the greatest longevity.

Online-only social interactions, such as writing wall posts and messages, showed that moderate levels were associated with the lowest mortality.

Because the investigators were studying an online social network, they could also look at the direction of friendship requests. They found it was Facebook users who accepted the most friendships who lived the longest.

Prof Fowler said: "The association between longevity and social networks was identified by Lisa Berkman in 1979 and has been replicated hundreds of times since.

"In fact, a recent meta-analysis suggests the connection may be very strong. Social relationships seem to be as predictive of lifespan as smoking, and more predictive than obesity and physical inactivity.

"We're adding to that conversation by showing that online relationships are associated with longevity, too."