What would you surrender in return for checking a status update? Seeing your friends? Doing the chores? How about sex? According to a recent survey by inbound marketing agency Browser Media, people are prepared to give up real life activities in favour of visiting sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

An hour a day



The study suggests that 14% of people will sacrifice going out or socialising, 10% will skip sleep and 8% will forego sex in order to spend more time social networking. In fact, women spend the equivalent of 963 days over their lifetime, or 60 minutes per day on social networking sites. Men on the other hand will spend just 723 days, or 48 minutes per day online with their friends.

Many other things are waylaid in favour of social networking sites. Other popular sacrifices included watching films and TV programmes, cooking and reading. 73% of women use social networking sites, compared with 62% of men. When it comes to household chores, the study found that almost twice as many women as men are prepared to ignore them.

Other trends

The study also revealed that 18-25 year-olds were the most prevalent of social network users. 92% of those surveyed use social networks, and it is estimated that if they continue to use it as much as the results show, over three years of their lives will be spent on the sites.

It is not just age that has an effect on social network use. Geographical trends were also observed, with Sheffield clocking up the most average minutes per day on social networks at 72. This is compared with the Edinburgh’s 35 minutes a day – over half as much.

Changing social landscapes

But is any of this really surprising? The evolution of smart phones means that social networking is almost inescapable. It is now an on-the-go activity, and whether you are on the way to work, sitting in bed at night or in the bathroom, there is no need to stop until the battery wears down and forces you to.

Because of this, many people suggest that social networking addiction is the next in a line of technology-related ailments after things such as online gambling and video games addiction. When individuals begin to favour status updates over basic essentials like cooking and sleeping, it turns from an interesting statistic into an alarm bell for some.

However, the question remains if such heavy use of social media is necessarily a bad thing. Life is evolving every day, and as social media becomes more embedded in daily life it may become the norm for many of today’s children. The fact is that organising to meet with friends is simply easier to do through Facebook than by phoning each person individually.

Equally interesting is the way social media is being used. Often social networking is done in tandem with other tasks, and a combination of multi-screen platforms such as phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. This provides a new challenge for brands and companies, and the successful brands are the ones which are able to pull up a chair at a digital table they haven’t necessarily been invited to sit at.