Social Media is Addicting but will it Replace Traditional News Sources?
According to some research conducted by Retrevo, social media may be more addicting than most of us realized. It also has a firm foothold in our morning news consuming habits, but does that mean traditional news sources should be worrying? Maybe not.
Even when we sleep, social media has a strong grip on our souls – or at least our minds and eyes. Retrevo’s most recent “Gadgetology” report found that 48 percent of respondents check/update Facebook or Twitter after they go to bed, during the night or as soon as they wake up.
More specifically, 19 percent of users under age 25 said they check/update Facebook or Twitter any time they wake up during the night, compared with 11 percent of users over age 25. Twenty-seven percent of respondents under age 25 said they sometimes do this when they wake up during the night, compared with 20 percent of those over age 25. Meanwhile, 32 percent of younger users said they check/update either of the two social networking sites as soon as they wake up in the morning, compared with 21 percent of older users.
Another finding from the study was that 42 percent of respondents said they check/update Twitter first thing in the morning, and 16 percent said this is how they get their morning news fix.
Eighteen percent of respondents under age 25 said they check/update Facebook before they get out of bed, compared with just 8 percent of their older counterparts. For both age groups, 17 percent said they do so before they turn on the television, while 16 percent of the younger segment said this is how they get their morning news, compared with 15 percent of the older crowd.
For all three of the above situations, iPhone users exhibited the most activity – 28 percent check/update Facebook or Twitter before they get out of bed, 26 percent do so before they turn on the TV and 23 percent say this is how they get their morning news.
“You have to agree, iPhone owners do think different,” Retrevo notes in its report. “We don’t know if it’s the device making it so easy to do social media things or the personality of an iPhone owner but iPhone owners stand out in this study as more involved with social media; they use Facebook and Twitter more often and in more places.”
Hitwise recently showed that Facebook users were more loyal to both the top five print media and top five broadcast Web sites than users from Google News and elsewhere on the Web. Facebook also accounted for 3.5 percent of visits to news sites in February, according to the company. This placed the social network behind Google (17 percent), Yahoo! (7.9 percent) and MSN (4.4 percent).
Twitter was 39th with 0.14 percent, which reflected an increase of 54 percent from last year.
The company also found that 56 percent of social media users need to check Facebook at least once a day, while 12 percent said they check in every couple hours. Younger users exhibited a weakness for going too long without Facebook, while older users said they were able to go longer times without checking the social network.
Retrevo also found that more than 40 percent of respondents said they didn’t mind being interrupted by a message, with 32 percent saying meals weren’t off limits and 7 percent said they’d even check a message received while having sex.
Younger users expressed more of an openness for checking electronic messages during meetings, meals, sex and bathroom sessions, while older users expressed an overall disdain for interruptions.
Sources:</strong
http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2010/03/social-media-new-addiction%3F
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=124672
