Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Disturbing

An article by Nicole Ferraro, "Intelligence Down, Social  Networking Up", has some really disturbing statistics in it. The most disturbing is from our friends at A. C. Nielsen about the amount of time being spent on social networking sites by the populace of various countries.

Time Spent On Social Networking Sites


Add the fact the Nielsen also reports that Americans are glued to the boob tube 151 hours per month on average and you have a pretty good basis for understanding the decline and fall of American productivity. 151 hours a month comes out to 5+ hours a day. So we have 6+ hours on the social networking sites plus 5+ hours glued to the tube. It's really fortunate that at least some people can multi-task; otherwise we would have only a few hours a day left to work and interact as normal human beings.

Inquiring minds want to know: do you find this as disturbing as I do? The loss of productivity, the increased obesity due to inactivity, the failure of normal human to human interaction and socialization - it all seems a high price to pay for things as mindless as TV and facebook and twitter, and ...

5 comments:

  1. I do find it very sad.

    I also find the disappearance of the written letter being replaced with the email sad (I think you choose your words much more carefully when writing a letter versus an email).

    I am grateful for all the Internet has brought, but am hopeful it never replaces human interaction.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So glad you did not add blogging to your list! I don't even want to think about the amount of time my addiction takes/day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ....and blogging.... I know that you meant it! I guess anything can be a time sucker. But the Internet/Blogging has opened up a wonderful world of information and sharing.

    But yes, it is disturbing. When my cousin's children were younger, my cousin had a strict time limit for TV and computer use. People thought she was too strict, but the kids got out and DID things. That's healthy :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. In the winter there isn't much else to do. It's -13 right now and there is no way I am sending the kids outside. They are restricted to either TV or internet. Not both at the same time. On the one hand it is disturbing but on the other we are connecting to on another even if it isn't real or face to face. I think the internet has replaced the front porch, which is sad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is disturbing, but I am not shocked by it. As a teen, I found lots of ways to waste time--I think social networking is just this generation's way.

    ReplyDelete

You know you want to ... so just do it!!!

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin