Online Sociality Linked to Lower Death Risk
网络社交有助于降低死亡率

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。

撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔(Christopher Intagliata)
翻译：郭鑫鹏
审校：丁可含

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

原文链接：
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/online-sociality-linked-to-lower-death-risk/

（题图来源：http://www.scientificamerican.com）