LOI+3

An inquiry into how people can arrive to a healthy balance in their use of social networks...

Laura- 10 june 2011

Social networks are very useful, but have to have a balanced time in it. Everything needs a balance, like food, or exercise, social networks need a balance too. The perfect balance is from 1 to 2 hours. To get a healthy balance, you need to manage your time in the computer, and try to accomplish with it. You need to pass more time with your family and friends and outside life. We are not telling you to stop using them, just that you need to have a balanced time between your family, friends and outside life. Follow our tips and have a balanced life!

= Valeria - 9 june 2011 =

Like any addiction, social networks addiction has various effects on an individual. As the word "addiction" suggests, the effects are not always very good. There are some effects that are general to all addictions. The addict becomes dependent on the social network, loses control of himself. There are also effects that are particular to these.

 As an internet addict becomes have a accelerated sense of time, the addict can acquire techno stress. The symptoms of these will be the accelerated time, a desire for perfection, yes-no patterns of thinking.

 The social networking sites allows people can interact with other individuals behind the screen, without knowing the other individual’s appearance. Such an interaction consequently makes both individuals lose real life communication skills, and even become socially withdrawn. Online, emotions can be expressed with symbols and specific words designated to convey a feeling. On the other hand, it takes away the need for using visual communication skills of the face, body, and hands. Without exercising these skills, they can weaken. And as one spends more and more time online, they can become used to only communicating with typed words, and finding it difficult to talk to people in real life.

 His fingers are constantly tapping. When there is nothing to type-for instance, while waiting as the computer answers his previous request-he strokes the outside edges of the keyboard or taps the table. His eyes are locked on the screen and it occurs to me that the person have barely made eye contact within the whole day, even at lunch.

**Vera- 8 June 2011** people can arrive to a healthy balance in different manners, the first one is to understand that if we pass alot of time and we become addicted to a social networks we need to try to stop this, by talking to a psycologist, scientist or at least try your best to stop this problem. We are not saying that people need to STOP using social networks, what we want is that you have a healthy balance.

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**Maya - June 6 2011** > The thing is not to ignore social networks completely, in fact they are good in many thing and can be useful in many different situations. Besides it is almost impossible to not be involved in any social networks. Also even if you are not part of any social network people constantly are talking about them and inviting you to them. Google used to be the most used website but apparently it is tied with facebook. The important thing is to have a balance.
 * Web Site Links:**
 * http://www.bethkanter.org/social-networks/
 * http://blog.insightdesignstudios.com/2011/05/19/finding-balance-in-the-social-networking-arena/

**"From Neglecting My Kids to Finding a Balance And Happiness" - Maya - June 1 2011**


 * Web Link -** http://www.babble.com/mom/work-family/computer-addiction-internet-time-with-kids/

This article is about a woman that went from being a social network addict and ignoring her kids to finding a balance and not even feeling the need of entering any social network. Here are some important segments of the article though I think you should read the whole thing...

"Like every other mother out there, I often complained of “not enough time in the day,” but no wonder there wasn’t enough time; I was wasting tons! I wondered, as many of us have, what would happen if I pulled the plug and spent more one-on-one time with people — namely, my kids. I am a stay-at-home-mom and all, isn’t that the point?"

"Then, like an unexpected blessing, my Internet went out. Normally, this would be grounds for a major phone call to my Internet provider to “turn that thing on and do it yesterday!” Instead, I took the break in service as a real break. I could still check my email for the important stuff on my phone, but Facebook and Twitter just weren’t as much fun that way."

"The funny thing about my little experiment is that now I find I actually don’t want to spend countless hours online. It almost feels like those things are intrusions on my life. But of course I still use my computer — I have to, we all have to. We live in a world now where everything is at our fingertips, so I balance."

**Maya - 24 May** We did a survey to all kids and teenagers from the age of 7 to 18. There was a question which can really help answer this line of inquiry. The question was "What do you think is an acceptable amount of time to spend on social networks each day?". We did the survey to 94 people. Here are the answers-


 * ~ Amount of people ||~ Acceptable amount of time ||
 * 27 || up to 1 hour ||
 * 27 || up to 2 hours ||
 * 15 || up to 3 hours ||
 * 14 || up to 4 hours ||
 * 11 || up to 5 hours and more ||

I think this is important to know for this line of inquiry because it shows people points of view of how much is enough. More than the half chose 2 hour and less but 11 chose more than 5 hours. I was quite surprised with this because I expected less people to choose 5 hour and more. This could show that maybe some people don't actually know hoe much is enough.

Most of the people chose "chat" which could be an important use of time in the way that I could be talking about important issue's or with people I love which are far away or it could be a waste
 * ~ Activity ||~ Amount of people ||
 * Chat || 72 ||
 * Games || 63 ||
 * Work || 34 ||
 * Keeping in touch || 31 ||
 * Gossip || 21 ||
 * Making New friends || 31 ||
 * Sharing things || 32 ||
 * Other || 4 ||