“86% of young people always carry their smartphone with them”
“60% of young people feels restless as they receive a message and they can not view directly”
“Young people in the age of 13-18 suffering from a severe form of “social media stress”. “
These are some quotes of findings of a research of the Dutch National Academy of Media and Society. This investigation is done at 500 adolescents and is combined with some American Studies about FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
Nowadays, social media like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter are constantly accessable via smartphone. Through special sounds and push messages will frequently be asked to respond to messages.
Ability to concentrate
Most of the adolecents say that they experience stress because they are afraid of social exclusion or missing things. Besides that it is also important for adolescents to present themself on the right way on social media, because on social media everybody occur to be better than in normal life. This feelings will cause pressure and will lead to uncertainty but also to powerlessness and low self-esteem.
They also point out that the use of social media sometimes will be at the expenses of concentration, school results, sports, (real) contact with friends and family and sleep. But they don’t know how to deal with it.
To take action of all this, the National Academy of Media and Society has made a website called: ikbenoffline.nl (translation: i am offline) and started a campaign focused on primary and secundary schools to get attention on the occurrence of this social media stress of adolescents. On the website ikbenoffline.nl you will find material “how to live without being online 24/7”, for example tips, posters and t-shirts and a game of goose (NL: Ganzenbord) a dutch boardgame.
The campaign has started in may 2012 and is still running.
Hopefully is this a good way to prevent SMS and FOMO at adolescents the future!
Sources
http://www.mediaenmaatschappij.nl/images/artikelen/PDF/Onderzoekrapportage%20Jongeren%20lijden%20aan%20Social%20Media%20Stress%20(SMS),%20mei%202012.pdf
http://www.ikbenoffline.org/
http://www.mediaenmaatschappij.nl/index.php/publiciteit/publicaties/253-nieuwsbericht-lessenserie-ik-ben-offline-over-social-media-stress
http://nos.nl/artikel/370646-stress-jongeren-door-sociale-media.html
