2010 Facts:
1.Between 5-10% internet users suffer from some form of web dependency
2. 1 in 8 individuals show signs of problematic use
3. 69% of US residnets are regular Internet users
4. 14% find it hard to stay away from Internet for few days
5. 6% of relantionships suffer as a result of excessive use
6. Averagne number of friends on facebook is 130. (which of you have 130 proper friends in real live? how to manage stay in contact with them?)
Thousands are saying that they have 100 friends online on Facebook or MySpace, that 1000 people are following them on Twitter, but they are claiming that they feel lonely or depressed?
“Going in Facebook often makes me feel lonelier” says Stephen from UK with word of explanation “You see parties you’re not invited to. It’s annoying even if you don’t really like the person”.
In the same article we can read analysis from Dr Dorothy Rowe, psychologist and author of ‘Friends and enemies: our need to love and hate’ (Harper Collins). “You never meet anybody who isn’t working ‘harder then ever’ and whose social calendar isn’t ‘jam-packed’.” It is online where exaggeration and sometimes outright lies, really thrive. Ever scrolled down list of updates on a social networking site and felt green-eyed at the fun everyone else is having? In the era of loneliness, texting, status updating and tweeting have made it harder to accept being alone because it seems like everyone else is busy.
Says Dr Sigman: “social networking displaces face-to-face time: an hour longer spent on the Internet has been shown to equate to half an hour less face-to-face time in a day. One of the seductive things about social media is that it gives you a sense of contact and you can be whoever you want to be, but it’s not the same as someone connecting with the real you.” He believes that the rise of social networking sites has also made us compare our lives with those of others. Dr Sigman warns against taking the viral word too seriously: “You are not looking through the window at other people’s parties, but seeing the EDITED HIGHLIGHTS. Every typed word is planned, so you get ROSE-TINTED VERSION OF REALITY. Plus, social networking has replaced quality with quantity.
“Facebook and Twitter don’t provide you with company. They are pseudo-friendships. You can have lots of people you call friends, yet no one interested in finding out about you.”
Company Magazine , October 2010 – article “The Saturday night you won’t put on your status update!” page 51 and 52.
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