friendships; that is how we can become better people and be introspective, self-analytical, and reflective—all those things that make us human .
An emerging body of research in the field of clinical psychology suggests that we should be spending more quality time alone.In an article titled “The Power of Lonely: WhatWe Do Better Without Other People Around,” Leon Neyfakh states that “spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us—that certain tasks and thought processes that are best carried out without anyone else around, and even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities and be capable of focus and creative thinking.” Proponents of solitude claim that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with other people, we need to spend certain time away from them too. The ol’ saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is more deeply true than any of us completely understood.
Still, many of us go to great extremes to ensure that we will not be alone with our thoughts. I remember when I was in high school, taking breaks from homework or walking to school and noticing the world around me. I went to Brearley, widely considered one of the top high schools in the nation, and while I credit my teachers, curriculum, and peers with the fantastic education I received, I think the time I spent alone in high school helped too. I had time to reflect and to absorb the information of the day. By the time college started, I was immersed in my phone and soon would be immersed in Friendster (RIP), Myspace, and Facebook. I don’t think I truly needed study breaks in college, as I only studied for five or six minutes at a time between checking my phone or Facebook. In high school, I remember sitting at my desk for six or seven hours, sometimes, without a single distraction. Today, I’ve barely opened my eyes and I’m on my phone; my iPhone reigns.
There are now over 1.15 billion active Facebook users. The latest numbers on Twitter indicate that it has over 240 million monthly active users.Nielsen found that between 2003 and 2009, the total time spent on social networking sites went up 883 percent among all ages, with teens between thirteen and seventeen years old increasing their usage 256 percent in one year,“growing at a rate faster than any other age group.”They also found that the average teenager sends and receives more than seven text messages for every hour they are awake. Teenage girls send and receive about four thousand texts a month.
If we assume it takes thirty seconds to read a text message, think of a response, and type a reply, then we can deduce that based on the numbers of texts they send, the average teenager or twentysomething spends roughly an hour to an hour and ten minutes of their waking hours each day texting. If we add to that (at least) three or four hours of time on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and similar member-community sites—Common Sense Media found that25 percent of teens log on to their favorite social networking site more than ten times a day—we arrive at an average of at least four to five hours of electronic and social media communication per day. Combined with school, after-school jobs, socializing with friends, and hopefully a tech-free dinner once in a while, this number leaves the average young person with virtually no time to be alone with their thoughts.
But it’s not just connection-crazed teens who are affected. All of us are spending more and more time in the digitalworld. Fifty percent of those I spoke with said they spend more than three hours on Facebook or Instagram per day, one out of ten said that they check Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter more than thirty times a day, and 61 percent confessed to checking these sites more than five times a day. According to Nielsen’s State of the Media report,Americans in general spent a total of
An emerging body of research in the field of clinical psychology suggests that we should be spending more quality time alone.In an article titled “The Power of Lonely: WhatWe Do Better Without Other People Around,” Leon Neyfakh states that “spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us—that certain tasks and thought processes that are best carried out without anyone else around, and even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities and be capable of focus and creative thinking.” Proponents of solitude claim that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with other people, we need to spend certain time away from them too. The ol’ saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is more deeply true than any of us completely understood.
Still, many of us go to great extremes to ensure that we will not be alone with our thoughts. I remember when I was in high school, taking breaks from homework or walking to school and noticing the world around me. I went to Brearley, widely considered one of the top high schools in the nation, and while I credit my teachers, curriculum, and peers with the fantastic education I received, I think the time I spent alone in high school helped too. I had time to reflect and to absorb the information of the day. By the time college started, I was immersed in my phone and soon would be immersed in Friendster (RIP), Myspace, and Facebook. I don’t think I truly needed study breaks in college, as I only studied for five or six minutes at a time between checking my phone or Facebook. In high school, I remember sitting at my desk for six or seven hours, sometimes, without a single distraction. Today, I’ve barely opened my eyes and I’m on my phone; my iPhone reigns.
There are now over 1.15 billion active Facebook users. The latest numbers on Twitter indicate that it has over 240 million monthly active users.Nielsen found that between 2003 and 2009, the total time spent on social networking sites went up 883 percent among all ages, with teens between thirteen and seventeen years old increasing their usage 256 percent in one year,“growing at a rate faster than any other age group.”They also found that the average teenager sends and receives more than seven text messages for every hour they are awake. Teenage girls send and receive about four thousand texts a month.
If we assume it takes thirty seconds to read a text message, think of a response, and type a reply, then we can deduce that based on the numbers of texts they send, the average teenager or twentysomething spends roughly an hour to an hour and ten minutes of their waking hours each day texting. If we add to that (at least) three or four hours of time on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and similar member-community sites—Common Sense Media found that25 percent of teens log on to their favorite social networking site more than ten times a day—we arrive at an average of at least four to five hours of electronic and social media communication per day. Combined with school, after-school jobs, socializing with friends, and hopefully a tech-free dinner once in a while, this number leaves the average young person with virtually no time to be alone with their thoughts.
But it’s not just connection-crazed teens who are affected. All of us are spending more and more time in the digitalworld. Fifty percent of those I spoke with said they spend more than three hours on Facebook or Instagram per day, one out of ten said that they check Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter more than thirty times a day, and 61 percent confessed to checking these sites more than five times a day. According to Nielsen’s State of the Media report,Americans in general spent a total of
Similar Books
