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Tag: social media addiction

  • New Bipartisan Bill Would Target Social Media Addiction

    New Bipartisan Bill Would Target Social Media Addiction

    A new bill, introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Cynthia Lummis, is aimed at understanding and mitigating social media addiction.

    Social media addiction has been a known problem for some time. In recent years, however, the full scope of the problem has become more widely known, including the lengths platforms have gone to in an effort to keep people engaged.

    For many, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the revelations whistle-blower Frances Haugen made regarding the harm social media platforms cause to young people. As a result, according to Reuters , the Senators’ bill would authorize the National Science Foundation and National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to study what steps Facebook and other platforms could take to minimize addiction. Once the problem is better understood, the FTC would implement rules to better govern social media.

    “For too long, tech companies have said ‘Trust us, we’ve got this.’ But we know that social media platforms have repeatedly put profits over people, with algorithms pushing dangerous content that hooks users and spreads misinformation. This bill will help address these practices,” said Klobuchar.

  • Facebook Addiction Puts Web Designer Behind Bars

    Think your addiction to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace is pathetically embarrassing? I seriously doubt you have anything on former web designer William Hall. However, his case isn’t really all that simple.

    Back in the year that was 2010, Hall was convicted of “surreptitious photographing”, as well as the “attempted sexual exploitation of a minor”. As a result of his lewd behavior, Hall was sentenced to 10 years probation. Additionally, he wasn’t allowed to own any sort of computer equipment or access the Internet. Exceptions to this rule, of course, could be made, but only with written permission from his probation officer.

    Being a web designer, Hall couldn’t really make any money unless he had access to the ‘net. After finding an employer and obtaining a letter from his PO, he was granted access once again to the online world. However, it didn’t take long for Hall to breach the trust of those around him; he was eventually caught using both Facebook and Myspace when he should have been hard at work making websites. The IT department quickly blocked the sites from his computer, but it didn’t take long for him find away around these restrictions.

    Of course, very little time passed before his employer discovered that Hall had, in fact, worked his way back onto the social networking sites he was instructed to stay away from. His probation officer was contacted, he was tossed back in the slammer, and the courts eventually sentenced him to 10 long years in prison. Here’s hoping his cell doesn’t have wi-fi.

    In a recent study, social media websites have been found to be more addicting than cigarettes, ranking just below sex and sleep as urges that are most difficult to keep under control.

  • Biz Stone: Too Much Twitter Use Is Unhealthy

    As more and more outlets pop up and more and more people rely on existing networks for communication, it’s no surprise that many of us feel addicted to social media. I’m sure your mother or maybe even your doctor has told you that spending all day on Twitter is not advised. But now, one of Twitter’s founders is saying that same thing: spending all day refreshing your tweet stream is unhealthy.

    Speaking at a business gathering in Montreal, Biz Stone had this to say when asked about people reported to spend hours upon hours straight on Twitter:

    “To me, that sounds unhealthy. I like the kind of engagement where you go to the website and you leave because you’ve found what you are looking for or you found something very interesting and you learned something. I think that’s a much healthier engagement. Obviously, we want you to come frequently.”

    Twitter is addicting – there’s no debate there. It’s appealing because of the entertainment value of some tweets and also because of the real-time info factor. Stone went on to say that “nobody thought [Twitter] was a good idea.” Apparently, people thought it would never be useful.

    Some people would still agree, as the topic of citizen journalism continues to be a hot debate. Just how important is Twitter to the world of real-time information?

    As far as Stone’s suggestion that Twitter overload is a bad idea…

    @patpirisi
    pat pirisi    Biz Stone says spending too much time on Twitter is unhealthy. That might explain my carpal tunnel syndrome, near blindness and scoliosis. 42 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @LARRYandWILLY
    larry and willy    Biz Stone of twitter says looking at your twitter feed 12 hours a day is not healthy! Allright. we’ll do 6 on Facebook.6 on Twitter then. 1 hour ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @ROXSTARZENT
    MJRECORDS    no shit…it’s unhealthy to stare at anything all day“@BlakkaEllis: twitter co-founder says it’s unhealthy to stare at tweets all day” 55 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Biz Stone had another interesting thing to say regarding Twitter’s structure. Although many people have clamored for Twitter to extend the character limit beyond 140, he provides a compelling reason why they won’t do that:

    “One of the wonderful things that’s emerged is that there’s a lot of creativity that comes from constraint.”

    A recent Nielsen study revealed that as a whole, American spend 565,156 minutes on Twitter per month. American spend a whopping 53.4 million minutes on Facebook. Do you think we are addicted to social media? Let us know in the comments.