Study shows 4 out of 10 fed up with Facebook – are they addicted?

Facebook fatigue is running high, according to a Danish study which we are happy to bring you exclusively.

Here’s the data: 40 percent of Danish Facebook-book users, who are also members of the labour union HK/privat, are either tired of Facebook or really tired of Facebook. These are the results of an Epinion-survey commissioned by HK/privat for which almost 1,600 members filled out the questionnaire.

75 percent of the members who answered (1,200) have an account on Facebook. Of those, 8 percent are very happy with the social network, and 44 percent are pretty happy with it. 35 percent are pretty tired of it, and 5 percent said they are really tired of it.

The numbers are pretty high. That begs two questions: Since Facebook is a voluntary labor of love for each member, why are so many people fed up with it? And why don’t they just leave?

Maybe it’s because Facebook can be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol. A study by the University of Chicago on 200 Germans shows that the Number 1 desire is sleeping and eating, but that checking social media is almost as high on the list – way higher than having sex. Wired also reported on the study and concludes:

• The No. 1 desire reported was eating, followed by sleeping, and drinking non-alcoholic drinks. In fourth place was using some form of media, which made up 8.1 percent of all desires reported. The most commonly reported media activities were watching TV and surfing the internet. More specifically, in the “surfing the internet” category, 71 percent of participants had the urge to check their e-mail and 65 percent had the desire to use Facebook, Twitter or other social media. Having was sex a distant ninth.

What do we make of it? We recommend that you fake it on Facebook — feed the data sinkhole with fake names, addresses, birthdays etc. Not only because of the privacy issues. If you use a pseudonym, you keep more of yourself to yourself and may not take all the sharing and gabbing too seriously. It’s just a social network, after all. You should leave it and delete your account if you feel you waste your time.