WhatsApp has positive impact on psychological well-being: report

In a turn of events, social messaging application WhatsApp and other medium have been declared ‘good’ for our psychological well-being as per a recent research.

According to a study published in The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, social media especially WhatsApp is good for our psychological health.

Dr. Linda Kaye, a senior lecturer in Psychology found that the text-based messaging app, which offers users group chat feature, has a positive impact on mental comfort.

The research was conducted on a total of 200 users, 158 female and 41 men with an average age of 24, found that the average reported daily use of WhatsApp was around 55 minutes, with people using it because of its popularity and group chat feature.

As per the results the more the time people spend on WhatsApp per day, the less lonely they felt and thereby had higher self-esteem as a result of feeling closer to friends and family.

Dr. Kayle stated, "The more time people spent on WhatsApp, the more they feel close to their friends and family and perceived these relationships to be of good quality. The more closely bonded these friendships were the more people felt affiliated with their WhatsApp groups, which was related to positive self-esteem and social competence."

This study rejects the notion that social media leaves a negative impact on the users.