By Meredith Lepore
Some days it feels like we live, breathe, and die social media, but that may be changing. The recent events impacting privacy on Facebook and Twitter have prompted 40% of people with social media accounts to delete at least one of them in the past 12 months, according to new research by PR agency Edelman.
In a year that included the Cambridge Analytica data leak and so much fake news on social media platforms, 40% out of 9,000 people surveyed in Canada, China, France, Germany, Brazil, India, the United Arab Emirates, the U.K. and the U.S. said they had deleted one of the apps.
People want more regulation on social media platforms
The survey also found that 48% believe it is a brand’s fault if its advertising appears next to violent or hateful content, and 62% wanted more regulation on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Privacy invasions clearly played a major role in this result, but people could also be realizing that social media can induce a lot of negative feelings AKA FOMO (and also hurt productivity at work and in general.)
However, quitting social media does not automatically make you happier even though some people believe that there is a correlation between social media use and depression and suicide rates but no studies have actually supported that association as Nir Eyal points out.
Not surprisingly, quitting social media is harder to do the older you get. According to a Pew Survey, over 50% of social media users age 18 to 24 said it would be hard to give up social media, compared to 40% of users ages 25 to 29. Sixty-six percent of users over 50 had the easiest time quitting.
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Originally published at www.theladders.com