The usage of Social Media is increasing more and more by every year. But to what extent are Brits succumbing to it?
A new survey from BT has revealed just how addicted to social media the UK is, showing that the average Brit spends two hours and 12 minutes on social media every day, usually across three social media accounts.
In fact, BT thinks social media has made us “social needier” – Brits are expecting more and more validation through our social media, and putting a lot of time in to what we post on there… and it’s men who seem needier than women.
Men said they expected 40 likes on a post on average to “feel happy” about it, while for women that figure was 28. That’s much lower, but still pretty high. When we get those likes, the survey says, we feel happy (44%), recognised (29%), and popular (27%).
Then again, given how much time we spend crafting posts in the first place, maybe it’s not totally unreasonable to want something back: we spend an average of nine minutes composing a post (10 minutes for men and eight for women), or eleven minutes to take a picture and share it.
And then, when it’s finally up, men check a post for interaction every minute for a whopping 19 minutes, while women check every minute for 15.
Psychologist Dr Becky Spelman said it was “not surprising” that men show more dependence on social networks than women, since “they often have less well-developed social networks and fewer emotional ties in the real world”… a claim which could probably benefit from a little empirical evidence.
Overall, 68 of survey respondents said that being recognised on social media is “important”, and more than half said they felt envious of people whose posts garnered more likes, shares, and responses.
“Superficial interactions such as ‘liking’ someone’s post are harmless in themselves,” Spelman continued, “but people need to be careful that when they interact with social media they don’t forget real life relationships with friends and family members.”
– Kim Stables
Original Source: BT
