Facebook’s Gross National Happiness Index.

With now 500 million people using Facebook, the data they’re generating about our online behaviors that could possibly reflect our inner well-being is being put to use to try and decipher what all of this stuff means. There’s an internal team at Facebook trying to figure all of this out. They just published a recent report Social network activity and social well-being that found users who consume greater levels of content report reduced bridging and bonding social capital and increased loneliness. This makes some sense to me. Are some power-users replacing the positive value we gain from in-person relationships with the less valuable connections made on social networking sites and the gratification of an immediate response to your activity. What if every time you said something funny at a dinner party people could “like” that comment? How would that change your behavior and the conversations in the room? Would it create a conversation full of zingers? Would immediate in-person feedback from friends and acquaintances make you happier?