Social Change
by Miki SaxonI admit it; as anyone who is a frequent reader I am not a Facebook devotee; for that matter, I’m not a lover of social media in general, which includes MMOG sites such as World of Warcraft.
What people who know me don’t understand is that my dislike goes beyond my personal feelings.
Gently put, I am tired of and disgusted with number of intelligent, talented people who contact me for help balancing the demands on their time.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to help people and rarely charge for one-off questions, but it’s getting ridiculous.
For years I found that the problem wasn’t so much one of time management, but one of saying yes too often.
But, as the saying goes, that was then and this is now.
Now, after a week of time tracking exercises and analysis they come back and admit to two, five, eight or even more hours spent on various forms of social media.
Most are surprised; they had no realization that the number was so high.
I suggest they cut back and use the time where they feel pinched—the reason they contacted me in the first place.
Some are sheepish, others are defiant, but most are reluctant to reduce their time.
I didn’t need to read about “FOMO addiction” (the fear of missing out on something or someone more interesting, exciting or better than what we’re currently doing), I was hearing about it directly from the addicts.
So it was with great delight that I read that there is a growing rebellion.
The main reasons for their social media sabbaticals were not having enough time to dedicate to pruning their profiles, an overall decrease in their interest in the site, and the general sentiment that Facebook was a major waste of time.
About 4 percent cited privacy and security concerns as contributing to their departure. Although those users eventually resumed their regular activity, another 20 percent of Facebook users admitted to deleting their accounts.
(…)The report found that 42 percent of Facebook users from the ages of 18 to 29 said that the average time they spent on the site in a typical day had decreased in the last year. A much smaller portion, 23 percent, of older Facebook users, those over 50, reported a drop in Facebook usage over the same period.
Perhaps people are finally kicking their FOMO addiction, facing up to their time usage and figuring out that there is more to life than what’s online.
I find it most interesting that the decrease in Facebook usage is twice as high in the young (18-29) than in the over 50 crowd.
Who’d a thunk it?
Flickr image credit: birgerking
February 18th, 2013 at 11:02 am
Hi Kirby,
Hard to know if this is a real comment or creative spam, but with no link there’s nothing to gain. That said, thanks for your kind words.