People who are surfing the web or using Facebook suffer from an impaired perception of time. New research has pointed out the differences of time perception among people, depending on whether they were using the internet or just Facebook.
The research, carried out by a team of psychologists from the University of Kent, indicates that Facebook-related stimuli can cause an underestimation of the time spent on the network, compared to the general use of internet. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Facebook Distorts Our Perception Of Time
While both browsing the web and spending time on Facebook were found to distort the subjects' perception of time, people who were using Facebook had an even more altered evaluation of the passing of time. The researchers used internal clock models, as an attempt to separate "attention" and "arousal" as drivers when it comes to time distortion.
"We found evidence that internet and Facebook related stimuli can distort time perception due to attention and arousal-related mechanisms. This highlights that Facebook-related stimuli lead to an overestimation of time compared to internet-related stimuli, and both Facebook and Internet related stimuli were associated with better discriminability of time compared to matched neutral stimuli. Implications of these findings on addiction are discussed," noted the research.
As part of the research, 20 images were shown to 44 people in different amounts of time. Five of the images were associated with Facebook, five involved more generic internet associations, and the other 10 images were used as neutral images.
The subjects had to evaluate whether the images they were shown were displayed for a long or a short period of time. The results of the research showed that subjects had a tendency to underestimate the amount of time they had spent looking at Facebook-related pictures more than subjects who were displayed more generic internet-related images. However, both groups were found to underestimate the time interval for which the image was shown compared to their evaluation of the neutral images.
The main finding of the research was that people who associate visual stimuli with internet or Facebook-related pictures lose the capacity to objectively evaluate the amount of time that have passed. This research shows that images can distort our perception on time depending on how we pay attention to them. Future research on psychological behavior could be developed, starting from this premise, to further investigate the mechanism behind addiction and social media.
1 In 5 Young People Loses Sleep Over Social Media
This research is all the more relevant as it confirms research directions opened by prior studies. Another recent paper describing the amount of time children and adolescents spend on social media has shown that one in five young people regularly loses sleep over social media. Some of the children who were part of the research reported "almost always" waking up to check their social media accounts, which was correlated with sleep deprivation and poorer academic results compared to their peers who did not wake up to check on social media.
"There are increasing concerns that social pressures, such as family changes and social media, are 'invading' the sanctuary of the bedroom with the result that students arrive at school tired and stressed. [...]The paper concludes by arguing for more research on the complex social causes and consequences of sleep deprivation among today's youth," noted that study.
