Following a report by Gartner in August 2011 called “Consumer Fatigue with Social Media”, many marketers have been wondering whether or not the digital addiction is the trend that it appears to be, whether it is actually a fad that is on its way out.
This has been highlighted by the stories popping up all over the media that have indicated that millions of people have been deactivating their email accounts due to the commercialization, privacy concerns, boredom with the concept, or the lack of interest in sharing everything they do with everyone they know.
Now analysts are wondering if the world is actually beginning to turn away from social media, or if this is just yet another example of the efforts of journalists to make a dramatic story out of something much more modest.
The Social Media Report for the 2011 third quarter, by Nielsen, showed that blogs and social networks continue to maintain their top positions as the primary online destinations for internet users, making up about 25 percent of the time that Americans spend online. Among all of the destinations, Facebook is at the very top. In May 2011 alone, 53.5 billion minute were spent on the social networking platform by Americans. This was an increase from the same time in 2010, when Americans spent 50.6 billion minutes there.
Therefore, it appears as though the reports that the addiction to Facebook and other forms of social media have come rather prematurely – if they are due at all.