It seems that quitting Facebook is becoming the new helthy lifestyle promise.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/quitting-facebook_n_3962473.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
In this interesting article posted on the Huffingtonpost website, a reserch made by University of Vienna is shown. The question is: who are those pople who’d killed off their Facebook accounts? The researchers have examined the temperament and the demographical characteristics of the people who leave Facebook, highlighting what makes the difference between those who commit the “virtual identity suicide” and the rest of us, who still are fb-addicted.
Actually, nearly half of the current Facebook users surveyed said they’d previously considered quitting the social network. According to my experience, another interesting fact is that lots of users take a break from Facebook (I did it, few years ago, and it lasted almost two months): people need a break from the social media world sometimes, but than they feel like outcasts, and so they come back.
Focusing on those who really leave Facebook, the research did find several key attributes:
- they are more likely to be men (among those who were surveyed, 71.5% were male);
- they are older than Facebook’s users, on average (31 years old compered to 24) ;
- they are more worried about privacy issue, and their behavior is more conscientious;
- they have fewer friends (an average of 133 of Facebook friends, while an ongoing user has 349 friends);
- the time spent on Facebook is not different from a current user.
I think that, even if most of us don’t meet the highlighted characteristics, some of you have already thought about leaving Facebook. Why? Maybe because, as other research has shown, leaving Facebook has also become a kind of status symbol?
It’s becoming more and more common to hear about some of our friends (real friends, not Facebook friends) who is leaving the social media. I think that we should try to understand why. What do you think? Are the shown characteristics a satisfactory answer?
I think that this is a very interesting article. I believe that an additional reason why some people choose to leave Facebook is that they realise that it is a distraction and that they are probably spending too much time on it. I once de-activated my Facebook account temporarily whilst I was taking some exams in school for example, as I realised I spent a lot of my “revision” procrastinating on Facebook. Furthermore, I think people are beginning to acknowledge that it is not always “healthy” to be on Facebook, constantly looking at what other people are doing, and some people are growing tired of it, thus leave altogether. It would be interesting to hear other students thoughts? Has anyone de-activated their Facebook account temporarily for a short time for a certain reason?