What Spending 12 Billion Hours Per Day On Social Media Has Taught Us

Evidently, we all have much to share.

Over the last 10 years or so, more and more social media users have grabbed their digital blow-horns and announced what they don’t like about their current flight, the sushi place near their home, and the person speaking during a political debate. (By the way, it’s almost always what we don’t likeWe all naturally have the tendency to feel negative.

The result is that we’re now spending over 12 Billion hoursOn social media per dayAll over the globe.

This stat was in a book I just finished called STFU: A Powerful Way to Maintain Your Silence in a Noisey WorldBy Dan Lyons. Although the book claims that 10 billion hours are spent on social media per day, I found out from Dan Lyons that the data actually exceeds 12 billion hours. That’s the equivalent to 1.4 million years.

Perhaps this is a great time to inquire why.

Lyons says it’s because we are all too talkative, and I tend to agree. First we talk about local sports teams, and secondly complain about weather. I tend to gravitate to the comments on Facebook posts and replies on Twitter, especially when it’s something controversial. I’ve become really good at predicting what people will say in comments.

In a recent Facebook video about a dad teaching his child how to jump up onto a table — which has thousands of comments — I knew that most people would complain about how the child might fall. That’s true. However, how many people are going to complain about this? If 999 of those people had checked the first comment, they could have just noted how that’s been covered and moved on to something else. It could save you a lot of time.

This book, written by Dan Lyons, does a great job explaining how to solve this problem. All of the tips in his chapter on social networking are great, but I love the section where he suggests to wait. It’s actually an acronym, which stands for Why Am I Tweeting? This question may give you pause.

Just recently, I shared a link from an article that I wrote about Greta Thurnberg. A comment was made almost immediately by someone claiming that a book I have recently published (about seven minute productivity routines), is a scam.

Okay? Sure? It is possible. Is that what Greta Thunberg’s story? (By and large, I am often curious if people are regretting what they have said on social networks since the book took 18 months to complete. Lyons also mentions that she regrets. We regret that we used the apps, and not that it was something we regretted.

Here’s where things stand right now. Why do we use social media to post so much? Posting is possible. These tools are extremely easy to use. You will need to have a smartphone in order to make TikTok videos. All of us have one these days. A social media account is required to comment.

Lyons suggests that we throttle our comments and posting. Think about it! It takes self-discipline, self-control and the ability to put down our smartphones once in a while.

What we have learned over the last 10 years and 12 billion hours per day of social media usage is that we don’t usually have self-control, that we post far too often.

We don’t really have all that much to offer, I think. Lyons comes to the conclusion in his book that we should all start learning to listen more, and that talking constantly just shows we don’t really have that much to say after all.