Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Time On Social Networks Almost Doubles In a Year

Posted by timothy on from the insidious-time-sinks dept.

GWMAW! writes "Spending more time on social networks and blogs? You're not alone, with the latest figures showing the number of minutes spent on social networking sites in the United States has almost doubled over the past year."

3 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Unemployment? by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could this correlate to an increase in unemployment? I know when I was unemployed I spent a lot more time on the internet in general. Not so much on social networking sites, but they weren't nearly as popular back then.

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    1. Re:Unemployment? by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Personally I hate the fact that I need a facebook account to keep up wiht friends I live within a few miles of.

      One of my friends recently got engaged. Ive known this guy for 15+ years. We have always been close, we traveled to Europe together. He is part of a tight knit group of friends who have known each other since high school. I see him fairly regularly, once ever couple of weeks at least.

      How did he inform his 5-10 oldest friends that he had chosen to take a major step in his life. Did he call them, did he put together a small email detailing how he proposed and so forth? No... he updated his fucking facebook relationship status.

      You have got to be fucking kidding me.

      I mean sure, that's a reasonable way for your freshman year roommate who you haven't seen in person for 5 years to find out that you are engaged, but your close friends, you cant even put together a couple of sentences and send out an email?

      I get the appeal of these sites, I do. Its a great way to maintain minimal contact with people you wouldn't usually see or keep track of. To keep a tenuous thread of communication open where it otherwise would have failed. The problem is, it doesn't stop there. It encourages all communication to go through this source and people start thinking of their friends as names on a screen rather than people they see.

      Sure, you don't have to be a punk like he was... but the existence and use of these sites certainly encourages people to do just that.

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  2. Depressing by wisesifu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have never seen a more depressing statistic. I still don't use these sites and see them mostly as a waste of time. I can understand why they are popular, but with all the privacy issues I really don't understand why you would want to risk so much of your identity/information.