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Snapchat Is The Happiest Social Media Platform

Researchers say Snapchat is the happiest form of social media. Photo: Getty Images

It's been well documented that Instagram in all it's meticulously styled and curated glory can induce feelings on inferiority and major FOMO.

And Facebook with it's 'humble' (or not so humble) bragging status updates can seriously leave you wanting.

However if social media has got you down, it might be time you tried Snapchat.

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According to a new study done by the University of Michigan, researched found that Snapchat makes people happier than any other social network.

The study, which has been published in the journal Information, Communication & Society, examined the link between Snapchat and participants daily moods.

"On the surface, many people view Snapchat as the 'sexting app,'" says U-M researcher Joseph Bayer who worked on the project.

"But instead, we found that Snapchat is typically being used to communicate spontaneously with close friends in a new and often more enjoyable way."

"At the same time, Snapchat interactions were perceived as having less social support than other social media. These findings open up important questions about the benefits and costs of different social media."

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The researchers studied 154 college students who actively used smartphoens. The students were tested with "experience sampling" to assess their well-being after texting them at random times six times a day for two weeks.

When the students received a text they would have to answer a survey about their latest social interaction on who it was with, how supportive they were and their overall feelings at the time.

The researchers found that the participants felt more positive overall when they interacted on Snapchat over Facebook, perhaps due to the short life span of a Snapchat post over that of other social mediums.

"Since Facebook has become a space for sharing crafted big moments such as babies, graduations and birthdays, Snapchat seems to provide users with a distinct space for sharing the small moments," said Bayer, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies whose research focuses on communication technologies.