The study found that more than 50 per cent of young adults in Singapore, China and the US find it too time consuming to keep up with all their social-media commitments. They also admit that the time they spend on social-networking sites has had a negative impact on their job or studies. They even feel stressed about social media and feel that managing these commitments has become a chore.
“Young adults are super wired, and that’s created an ever-present social obligation that’s starting to wear them down," said Angus Fraser, managing director of JWT Singapore. "They feel they have to look at and ‘like’ their friends’ photos and status updates to keep up and show they care.”
The survey was conducted in early February using Sonar, JWT’s proprietary online research tool. JWT surveyed a total of 900 young adults, aged 18 to 26, including 300 from China, 300 from Singapore and 300 from the US. Half the sample were employed and half were students.
According to the study, 45 per cent of young Singaporeans visit social-media sites during lectures and classes, more than 33 per cent of young Americans will log in when they wake up in the middle of the night and 14 per cent of Chinese young adults will be sneakily tagging, liking and tapping during meetings.
Social media is even encroaching into their love lives. Respondents in all three countries said that they'll visit social media sites while on dates (13 per cent), while in bed with their partner (11 per cent) and during intimate moments (7 per cent). Americans are particularly adept, fiddling around while getting dressed (29 per cent) and talking on the phone (35 per cent). Unsurprisingly, 40 per cent of all respondents say the amount of time they spend on social media has led to conflict with family, friends or their significant others.
Needless to say, all this social networking is also taking a toll on their work. Nearly half of the employed young adults in all three countries said they've recently been late for a meeting because they were checking social-networking sites. In China, that figure rises to 59 per cent.
Despite all these findings, stopping is just not an option. Over half feel pressured to be in constant contact on social media, and 60 per cent say that their friends often ask them in person to check out photos and comments they’ve posted on social sites. More than half also feel obligated to ‘like’ or comment on their friends’ photos and status updates. The Chinese in particular feel the most obligation (68 per cent) while young, working Americans are the most likely to feel guilty (53 per cent) if they don’t respond to a social-media message right away.
Singaporeans, though, take the trophy for speed of response, impressive considering they also receive the most notifications, with more than half receiving them every couple of hours or so.
There is also the stress of carefully managing online images. The Chinese are more likely to use social networks to upgrade their image, with 63 per cent admitting they look more attractive in their social-media profile picture than they do in real life, compared with 53 per cent in Singapore and 35 per cent in the US.
All this clicking is resulting in a certain amount of stress and fatigue. Two-thirds of youth in China find their social-media obligations too time consuming and 57 per cent feel more stressed out now than a year before.
Young working adults are also subject to social-media envy. A notable 57 per cent of employed respondents said they sometimes feel jealous of other people on social-media sites. And 55 per cent sometimes feel bad about themselves after taking a glimpse at other people’s lives via social media.
This is particularly acute among young working adults in China where the pressure to network, excel on the job and marry well is particularly high: 65 per cent of employed Chinese respondents say they feel pressure to be in constant contact on social media, sharply higher than their working counterparts in the US and Singapore. In addition, 62 per cent feel pressure to appear witty on social media, and 58 per cent say their social-media obligations are a source of stress.
To answer the silent consumer scream for mercy, JWT Singapore and Nestle's Kit Kat have
launched a widget to give users a "social break". The widget, the first of its kind, sits on a consumer’s desktop computer and automatically ‘likes’ photos their friends have tagged them in on Facebook, auto-shares articles that friends have posted on LinkedIn, and tweets back short, generic responses, like ‘Tell me more’ and ‘Let’s meet up and chat’ to messages they’ve been tagged in on Twitter.