Twitter, Facebook: For Business or Addiction?
Twitter, Facebook: For Business or Addiction?
Real estate professionals rely on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to reach new customers and keep in contact with former clients. But how much time do you devote during your business day to social networking sites?
A new study suggests social networking is becoming a public addiction.
Chicago University researchers found that tweeting or checking e-mails can actually be harder to resist than alcohol or cigarettes. Researchers used BlackBerrys to gauge the willpower of 250 people aged 18 and 85 from multiple industries.
Researchers found that as the day dragged on, willpower became lower when it came to using social networking sites and temptations grew stronger.
“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” says researcher Wilhelm Hofmann with Chicago University’s Booth Business School. "With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still 'steal' a lot of people's time."
The study will soon appear in the journal Psychological Science.
Source: “Twitter Is Harder to Resist Than Cigarettes and Alcohol, Study Finds,” The Guardian (U.K.) (Feb. 3, 2012)
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