Posted November 4th, 2014
By Guest Blogger
Over the past 10 years, since the inception of Facebook, the standard measure of time has not changed. A day still encompasses 24 hours, 1,440 minutes and 86,400 seconds. What has changed, at least for the 58 million Americans who self-identify as having the "social habit," a phenomenon categorized by social media usage five or more times a day, is individual interaction with time. Because of our internet driven lives, our society is inundated with information. Social sharing has become an integral part of our day-to-day lives; news that would have previously taken days to access is available in seconds. Countrywide uprisings have sprung because of this; numerous benefits accompany social sharing, in many different facets of our lives, but, like anything, moderation is key.
74 percent of all adult American internet users use social networking sites according to a Pew Study. 60 percent of all Facebook users sign in daily and 22 percent of those sign in five or more times a day. Almost 90 percent of Millennials have social accounts. Americans, on average, spend more time on social media than any other internet activity. Roughly 63 minutes a day are spent on social sites by Americans. More shockingly, if you take into account any form of digital media that number increases to 11 hours a day, per a report from Nielsen. All of the time spent sifting through our social profiles as well as the profiles of others does not come without consequence.
Although no psychological diagnosis has been definitively established in terms of social media -depression, many examples of research linking internet use with depression are accessible. Social withdrawal and the absence of face-to-face interactions are cornerstones of social media related depression. A recent study from Michigan State University following 319 people documented the correlation between social consumption and elevated rates of anxiety and depression.
- Noah Perkins,
CMS, VA Home Loan Centers "http://vahomeloancenters.org/"
