互动科普

Facebook users in California had slightly better health outcomes than nonusers, even after controlling for other factors. Christopher Intagliata reports.

相近条件下，加州脸书用户的健康状况比非用户稍好一些。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

Exercise and healthful eating are linked to better health-and so is having a decent circle of friends. Now it looks like that link between friends and better health is true for the major online social network, too: Facebook.

锻炼和健康的饮食可以让人更健康，拥有一群好友同样可以。现主流社交网络Facebook正印证了朋友间社交活动和健康之间的联系。

Researchers compared the health records of 12 million Facebook users to non-users, in California. After controlling for things like age, race, and gender, they found that being on Facebook was associated with a slightly lower risk of death in a given year.

研究者们比较了加利福尼亚州1200万Facebook用户和非用户的健康记录。当控制了年龄、人种、性别等其他因素，他们发现使用Facebook的人死亡风险略微低些。

Now, some of that could be explained by the fact that Facebook users might be more affluent, or have better access to healthcare. So the researchers did a second analysis-by looking only at Facebook and non-Facebook users on the California voter rolls, a sort of proxy control for socioeconomic status. And the association still held up. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [William R. Hobbs et al., Online social integration is associated with reduced mortality risk]

或许，这个现象可以被解释为那些Facebook用户们更加富裕、可以接受更好的医疗。所以研究者们进行了第二次分析，他们这次仅仅关注那些在加利福尼亚选民名单上的Fecebook用户和非用户，这样可以一定程度保证研究对象们的社会经济地位处于相近的地位。结果我们依然可以看到Facebook社交和健康之间存在和之前相似的联系。研究结果发表在《美国国家科学院进程》上。

Of course correlation does not equal causation. Posting more photos isn’t going to increase your lifespan. But the takeaway here is that, in some cases-likes when people tag you in their photos-that online world can reflect real world ties. Interactions on Facebook are thus reflective of your actual human relationships-and might even reinforce them. Which certainly seems like a thumbs up.

当然这种相关性并不是代表社交就是健康状况的原因。发更多的照片并不会延长你的寿命。但是，这里想要说的是，某种情况下当人们在他们的照片上圈出你时，线上关系可以反映现实关系。Facebook上的交流不仅是你真实生活人际关系的反映，更是拓展和加强。譬如点赞。

-Christopher Intagliata