IS IT an addiction?! Thanks to Fluxy for the pciture on Flickr @ http://bit.ly/brf29N

I considered myself a “frequent social media user”, with some incipient risk of addiction. Since I read this blog from tech company Retrevo that relieved me. I’m NOT in the top risk category. Apparently, I don’t present the most visible signs of what researchers call “obsession with checking in with their social media circles throughout the day and even the night”.  

Believe it or not, the most dangerous symptom of the syndrome, according to scientists, is interrupting sexual activity (or, as Retrovo delicately phrases it, “intimate moments”), to check your Facebook or Twitter account. According to Retrevo, 11% among young users (under 25) do it regularly. Yes, that’s right, check their fourth chart, third green column from the left… My theory “the youngest, the best” is totally in crisis now.

Another bad sign is if you check your account(s) as soon as you wake up in the morning, sure that there will be somebody even more zealous than you who already posted something. This is a very contagious virus, since it strikes 48% of social media users. Not me.  I’m the kind of girl that avoids any interaction with the world (real or virtual) before 9.00h.

But then, it comes to the third, unmistakable symptom: are you ready to interrupt a dinner for an electronic message? YES! Yes, I am! I am able to start a 2 hours conversation on the phone while starting to eat and I completely forget about my dinner. But then the phone is quite old school isn’t it? I mean, I wouldn’t consider it as “social media”, but more as “social life” addiction.

Naturally, all this left me burning with curiosity… I started to wonder if my colleagues were those kind of very bad addicts, or just we all belong to the old school. Here the result of my Flash Survey 19-04-2010.

Sex and the ex

Definitely happy to discover that the majority of us don’t open Facebook during our “intimate moments”. Only one admits to having had “a chat” while making love.

Worth a mention, the case of “an ex insisting on checking if she got a text to her phone during sex”: maybe a sufficient reason to break up. (ed. How reliable is such information about an ex, I wonder?)

Otherwise, numbers talk clear: we are below the average, with 14 out of 15 answering an unambiguous “NO” to the question.

Night-book?

Unit below the average also there, but with some more positive answers: 1/3 of us check Facebook “during sleepless nights”, when they wake up (no Dan, not everybody does!), or before going to bed. It is, surprisingly, a 80% male majority. Maybe girls have something better to do at night?

Ex are recurrent presences in this poll: “My ex was sticking to Facebook as soon as she woke up. And I would have killed her!”. Poor guy… Take comfort from your colleague who had to deal with the sex-SMS-ex.

Dinner and phone, a popular combination

1/3 of us check Facebook “during sleepless nights”, when they wake up, or before going to bed.

Yes, we’re definitely the old school. Most of us allow interruption of dinner by the phone, but internet is not mentioned at all: we don’t have “our computer at the dining table”.

Some people “try to avoid it” (the phone), meaning that it’s a very frequent practice. Only 5 say a convinced “NO”, whereas the others – knowing that they could be judged under the Fine Dining Etiquette rules – answer a timid “no, unless…”.

No ex this time, but a very liberated family: ” I was always thought those families that wouldn’t answer the phone during dinner were strange. Would they rather have the phone ringing off the hook than answering?!”

And now comes the best…

Eh eh. You thought you were sane, didn’t you? That, despite the hours spent in front of the screen, all the pictures of your school mates you have been browsing, the dangerous chats with the ex, despite Twitter and MySpace entering your adult life, YOU are still immune. I did. Till I got at the end of the article:

“56% of social media users need to check Facebook at least once a day. Even more impressive are the 12% who check in every couple of hours”

Every couple of hours??? What if it’s every couple of minutes??? My god…THAT’s a SYMPTOM! Unless, unless…you have a good excuse…a good excuse like

“I use it for work”

And, uff, I have it. Do you?!