The Secret to Being Happier: Quitting Facebook for 99 Days?

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — A campaign called “99 Days of Freedom” is daring Facebook users to take a summer detox from the addictive social network.

However, not everyone has what it takes to go three months without logging on to check their newsfeed for friends’ selfies, relationship updates and vacation snaps.

The campaign, which launched earlier this week, has so far encouraged just more than 2,800 of Facebook’s one billion active users to take a vow of abstinence.

The initiative comes as a response to Facebook’s “mood experiment” on 700,000 users, said Merijn Straathof, the art director at Just, the Netherlands-based creative agency behind the “99 Days of Freedom” idea.

“Facebook is an incredible platform, we’re all fiercely loyal users and we believe that there’s a lot to love about the service,” he said. “But we we also feel that there are obvious emotional benefits to moderation.”

“Our prediction is that the experiment will yield a lot of positive personal experiences and, 99 days from now, we’ll know whether that theory has legs,” he added.

If the average user spends 17 minutes per day on Facebook and completes the challenge, they will have an extra “28 hours of freedom” to pursue other activities, Straathof said.

While it’s still early in the challenge, Straathof said participants have reported a “rough” day one, while others have said they’re much happier spending the extra time reading or going outside.

“Day 1 is the roughest. I am always looking for my app when I deleted it. I feel empowered to keep doing this though. I know I can stay strong!” a user named Henderson Cunningham wrote.

A man named Kurt wrote he was using his Facebook hiatus as motivation to work out more. “I’m heading back to the gym and getting more exercise with my ‘re-captured’ time,” he wrote.

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