Comments on: 700 Billion Minutes

By: Saint Louis

Saint Louis — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:53:55 +0000

700 billion minutes a month divided by 500 million users only works out to just over 45 minutes a day per user. That’s not really all that alarming, especially, if, as another commenter suggested, the time would’ve been wasted on TV anyway.

Also, I think the statistic greatly exaggerates the actual amount of use. For example, I’ll often sign in for one specific thing (e.g. to send a message to a few friends or to post a picture) and then leave it open in while I work on something else in another window. Thus, I might be logged in for several hours, but I’m only actually doing anything with it for about 5 minutes. I know I’m not the only person who does this. My wife leaves it open all night while she’s asleep so she doesn’t have to reboot the computer and log-in again the next day. She might be logged in for literally days at a time, but only actually spend 15-20 minutes on it.

By: 1.3 million years on Facebook, per month | Cranach: The Blog of Veith

1.3 million years on Facebook, per month | Cranach: The Blog of Veith — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:46:47 +0000

[...] HT: Joe Carter [...]

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:51:20 +0000

I wonder whether there was backlash over the first newspapers, or the Pony Express, or Bell’s handy-dandy invention, the telephone. Or books. “Agnes, dear, it’s so awful; Papa won’t ever put down that newspaper and talk to us! And Judith, she just sits all day scratchin’ away, writin’ that miserable dandy of hers, or readin’ all his nasty letters. Whatever can we do? *sigh!*”

When I was a kid, all I ever heard was how children were wasting their lives on the telephone. Or was it the television?

Media are what people use to stay in touch and learn about their world. Such interest can either be healthy or not, or a mix of both, as can ways of pursuing it. It might be more profitable to focus on what constitutes healthy interaction and learning, rather than on the modes themselves, which are not so much the problem as their misuse.

By: Cobb

Cobb — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:05:12 +0000

It’s funny that so much of the news on people spending time in cyberspace is considered unproductive. As somebody in the industry, we spend our careers competing for human attention. So for us this is all great news. Think about it from our perspective: time spent in cyberspace is essentially time spent reading and writing – well, even in it’s more primitive forms it is intellective work. It is time spent NOT driving cars. It is time spent NOT in dangerous streets where there might be crime. It is time spent not employing toxic chemicals, or risking physical injury. It is time spent using less and less energy as systems become more efficient.

By: John W. Martens

John W. Martens — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:59:32 +0000

Ed Snyder has made my day!

By: Joe Knippenberg

Joe Knippenberg — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:06:38 +0000

So I can, like, like this, if I, like, want to, on, like, Facebook?

Hello, my name is Joe Knippenberg and I’ve been off Facebook for almost a year now. I prefer “old fashioned” email to “facebooking.” And I leave it to my wife to keep up with those of our acquaintances who only communicate by that means. It’s one of the many sacrifices she makes for our family.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:45:53 +0000

I think that, if a given user chooses to, Facebook can be used to supplement “real life” in ways that we weren’t able to before, as David Nickol mentioned above, seeing pictures that would never have been sent via email, let alone snail mail. It can also let people know of the things happening in our lives that are a level or two above mundane, so when we do meet those people face-to-face, or even over the phone, there’s less small talk to wade through. I can have deeper face-to-face conversations, more quickly, because I and my friend use Facebook. :-)

By: Susan Karina

Susan Karina — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:38:48 +0000

Fortunately, I’m not a compulsive user (my compulsion is firing up the laptop every morning to get the current local temperature), but I have found FB a good way to connect with younger relatives–the Gen X’ers and Millennials, as well as staying in touch with my Baby Boomer cousins and friends.

For me personally, it doesn’t cut into face-to-face conversation time, but I am concerned about the decreasing lack of eye contact in everyday interactions.

By: Ed Snyder

Ed Snyder — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:00:10 +0000

I’m up to level 61 on FarmVille.

By: David Nickol

David Nickol — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:35:49 +0000

While I must acknowledge that I pretty much loathe Facebook, it’s the primary way I get to see my niece’s twin daughters growing up. It is not altogether worthless. And it’s quite possible to waste time in “real life.” In order to really make the case against Facebook, it would be necessary to demonstrate that those 700 billion online moments would have been used productively on “real life” endeavors had they not been used on Facebook. Had they been spent, say, watching the least objectionable program on television to kill time, I would say Facebook might be preferable.