Facebook making you feel depressed? Try these alternative social apps

Facebook might be handy for staying connected with your family and friends, but it’s depressing. Literally, that is.

Indeed, new research shows that the world’s largest social network could be making its users unhappier, one ‘like’ at a time.

A study from Yale and the University of California tracked 5,200 adults over three years, looking at their Facebook use, physical and mental health, and general well being, as well as their real-world social interactions.

The results showed that for every one per cent increase in ‘likes’, clicks on links and status updates on Facebook, users reported a decrease in self-reported mental health of between 5 per cent and 8 per cent.

That doesn’t mean you should deactivate your account without haste – but there are alternatives.

Granted, they may or may not be better for your mental heath, but there are other reasons to look for alternatives to Facebook.

For one thing, maybe you are less than enamoured with Facebook’s – frankly shocking – privacy settings? Or maybe you think it’s just too full of junk these days and has lost its original purpose?

Truth told, there could be any number of reasons why you would look for social networking alternatives to Facebook.

Whatever your reasoning, here are some alternatives to Facebook:

A web and mobile application that revolves around the concept of “pinning” photos, web pages, articles, and other content onto virtual noticeboards, then sharing them with people.

In a nustshell, Instagram lets users share pics and videos, either publicly or privately.

Users can create their own blogs and follow others’ in the same way as other social networks.

Started out as an app for sharing self-deleting photos with pals. These days, it’s an insanelypopular social network.

Nowhere does news break faster. You can choose to follow friends, strangers or celebs.