If you’ve ever felt a surge of existential bleakness after spending 20 minutes scrolling mindlessly through a fitness model’s Instagram profile, you’ll understand why more and more research is being dedicated to the impact of social media on our psychological wellbeing.

So far, much of this research has examined the effect of posting on social media – particularly the proliferation of selfies. But now, a new study has examined what happens when we view different kinds of photos on sites like Instagram and Facebook.

Researchers at Penn State University in the US discovered that spending too much time looking at selfies on social media can have a serious impact on our sense of self-esteem and life satisfaction.

But viewing group photos, in contrast, was found to have the opposite effect entirely.

The selfie vs. the group photo: which actually makes us happier?