Oct 28, 2013 09:10:25

Survey results reveal that the more time you spend online, the less time you have to sleep, study, and work due to the 'push-out effect'

By

Matt Gibson

Check your email as soon as you wake up in the morning, check the latest news on your smartphone while commuting to school or work, and during your lunch break, take a photo of your lunch to share online while checking social media like Facebook and Twitter and replying to messages... In many cases, life without the internet is not just unimaginable, it has become completely internet-centric. However, with only a limited amount of time in a day, it has been discovered that some things have been 'pushed out' by the new 'internet.'

Here's how the Internet hurts your sleep schedule, productivity and personal life
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/22/heres-how-much-the-internet-hurts-your-sleep-schedule-productivity-and-personal-life/

Analyzing the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) released by the National Bureau of Economic Research , Scott Wallsten, a senior researcher at the Tech Policy Institute, found a 'displacement effect' caused by the internet: people are spending more time on 'online entertainment,' taking away time from other activities.

Statistics show that for every 10 minutes spent online, the following is lost:

・Non-internet entertainment: 2.9 minutes
Work time: 2.7 minutes ( 3.75 minutes decrease for people in their 30s)
・Personal care including sleep: 1.2 minutes
・Travel: 1 minute
・Housework: 42 seconds
・Learning: 36 seconds

Among these, entertainment can be further classified as follows:
Non-online social activities: 32.4 seconds
・Relaxation etc.: 24 seconds
Party: 9.6 seconds
Cultural and public activities: 6 seconds

These numbers may not seem like much, but it's important to remember that every 10 minutes you spend online is time lost. Considering that the average person spends an average of 100 minutes online each day, that translates to a loss of 27 minutes of work time, 29 minutes of recreational time, and 12 minutes of sleep.

The lost benefits of spending time on a single activity are called

opportunity costs in economics, and many people have attempted to quantify them because they affect a wide range of fields, from the economy to education. Applying this to the internet, it has been found that $134 billion (approximately 13 trillion yen) has been lost in lost work productivity, and that for every 10 minutes a child spends online, the time they spend at school is reduced by three minutes.

However, as Wallsten himself points out, the magnitude of this opportunity cost is not simply a function of the amount of time spent online. For example, it does not take into account the opportunity cost of multitasking, such as 'checking tweets while writing an article,' and it is true that it does not keep up with the diversification of work styles.

Furthermore, even if work time is taken away, it does not necessarily mean that the amount of work completed has decreased, as it is possible that the work itself is more efficient than before. And when it comes to the point that spending time online reduces or takes away social interactions, online interactions have not yet been taken into account.

As the internet continues to advance, lifestyles will change accordingly, but it is still unknown what kind of differences will emerge between those who can keep up with the rapid changes and those who cannot.