Would 99 days of freedom from Facebook make you happy?

CTV News Channel: Response to the campaign Independent tech analyst Carmi Levy discusses the response to the '99 Days of Freedom' campaign calling uses to give up Facebook.

Facebook’s controversial study on users' emotions found that what people see on their newsfeed affects what they post and how they feel—but how would you feel if you weren’t seeing your newsfeed at all?

A Dutch non-profit, called Just, is posing that question as it launches an emotions experiment of their own. And unlike Facebook, Just is openly looking for willing volunteers to participate in the study.

The project is called "99 Days of Freedom" and the concept is simple. Users are asked to log of and stay off for over three months. As people go through Facebook withdrawal, Just asks participants to keep track of their emotions and complete happiness surveys on day 33, day 66, and day 99.

It’s not an anti-Facebook campaign, the organizers say, but a study in how freedom from social media affects happiness levels.

According to Facebook, the site has 1.2 billion users who each spend an average of 17 minutes per day on the website. That means users are on Facebook an average of 28.5 hours every 99 days.

Just’s art director, Merijn Straathof, predicts that spending those hours offline "will yield a lot of positive personal experiences."

"We also feel that there are obvious emotional benefits to moderation," Staathof said.

But tech journalist Andy Walker isn’t sure Just’s theory is correct or realistic in today’s world. Walker told CTV News Channel that he thinks the "99 Days of Freedom" project is "typical technology backlash."

"Something becomes ingrained in our culture and people say ‘now we want to move away from it because it's too popular,’ " Walker said.

He also said that, while Facebook didn’t execute the study in best way, users should get used to technology adjusting to and manipulating emotions.

"In the forthcoming decade we're going to see an enormous amount of technology adapting to us based on our emotions, our facial expressions, how we consume content and that sort of thing," Walker said, "So if you're somebody who doesn't like it you might as well shut your devices off."

With files from CTV News Channel