Are you — like most people — checking into Facebook multiple times a day? And is the time spent adding up to something more than idle scooting around reading your friends’ posts about holiday vacations or sitting rapt watching kitten videos?
Maybe, insists one author, your time is being squandered to no good end.
“With over 750 million active accounts, an astounding one in nine people in the world log on to Facebook, arguably the most addictive social media site,” says Anna James in a recent post at Fortune. “Studies reveal that Facebook makes us spend more, work less, and generally, discourages us. In this, has Facebook become a liability for budding entrepreneurs?”
James’ essay, which originally appeared at entrepreneur.com, was titled “6 Reasons to Delete Your Facebook Account Right Now.”
The six reasons? Here’s one.
“Facebook is the ultimate time waster,” posits James. “I joined Facebook in 2007, roughly eight years ago. On average I’d spend one hour on Facebook every weekday and an additional two on Saturday and Sunday, totalling 10 hours a week, or one of my average work days. That’s 4,160 hours over my Facebook life, equating to 173 days continuously, or 24 weeks, or six whole months of my life spent on Facebook. Entrepreneurs are constantly time poor — can you really afford six months of your life trawling through strangers’ holiday snaps?”
Her second reason: Facebook is a money pit.
“In 2012 Facebook appealed to the government to sell shares of stock to the public,” she explains. “In the vicinity of $75 billion, Facebook’s “stocks” are the data that we input into our profiles. Facebook mines our information to sell companies who orchestrate invasive advertising campaigns.”
James notes that Facebook is now littered with ads — “a virtual gold mine for the $200 billion company.” Ultimately, she says, Facebook makes far more money from us than we make from this social media platform.
The number 3 reason to take a hiatus from Facebook?
It hinders one’s entrepreneurial ambitions.
“Invest in a social-media platform that supports, not hinders, your entrepreneurial pursuits (my preference is Twitter),” says James. “Entrepreneurs should spend their time on a platform that generates revenue, unearths contacts, and cements their brand. The “garbage bag” mix found on a Facebook feed is not the forum to do this.”
As if these three reasons are insufficient, there are three more. To check them out, click here.
