Researchers say it is advisable to stay away from social media sites like Facebook this holiday season. A new study says that lurking online can make Christmas feel miserable.

Many social media users log into social media sites to connect with their friends and family members and share photos and videos taken this holiday season. However, researchers cautioned that too much time spent on these online hubs could create an unhappy mood due to "unrealistic social comparisons" with other people's timeline stories.

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"Regular use of social networking such as Facebook can negatively affect your emotional well-being and satisfaction with life," the study said. Morten Tromholt encouraged people to take a break and get the positive effect on their wellbeing.

In the latest study, almost 2,000 individuals with an average age of 34 were grouped into two. The first group continuously used social media platforms and the others refrained from going online for one week. The researchers discovered that members of the second group gained better well-being after a week of absence from Facebook. It was clarified that improvement depended on the quantity of time usually spent on social media and users' passiveness and activeness online.

Heavy Facebook users experienced improvement while light users did not experience the same. Likewise, individuals who have low envy scores did not experience the same benefits from online hiatus while those who scored moderate to high reported that they have fewer feelings of enviousness after one week.

Tromholt said that "participants who took a one-week break from Facebook reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and a significantly improved emotional life."

Another good news is, "actively connecting with close friends, whether in real life or on Facebook, may actually increase one's sense of well-being," said researcher Brenda Wiederhold.

With the findings, people are advised to use social media only if connecting with close friends and relatives this Christmas season. However, if feelings of enviousness are high, it is better to cut off ties with the internet. The study was published in the journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.