The American Psychological Association has released Part 2 of its August 2016 survey of Stress in America dealing with technology and social media. Please see this previous post for basic information about how the survey was conducted.
According to this survey, 99% of Americans own at least one electronic device (which includes radio, television and telephones), 86% own a computer, and 74% own an internet-connected smart phone. The latter two figures seem suspiciously high to me. This may be related to the fact that it was an online survey. (Their methodology section notes that the data were weighted “to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online,” but it doesn’t mention how people who have no internet connection were contacted.)
The Pew Research Center reported that the percentage of Americans using social media increased from 7% in 2005 to 65% in 2015. Among young adults aged 18 through 29, it was 12% in 2005 and 90% in 2015.
The APA survey finds that 18% of Americans say that technology is a very or somewhat significant source of stress in their lives. To put this in perspective, 61% report money as a very or somewhat significant source of stress, and 57% say the same for the current political climate.
Forty-three percent of Americans report that they constantly check their emails, texts or social media accounts, and another 43% check them often. Here is the breakdown of constant and frequent checkers on work and non-work days.
The constant checkers report a higher overall level of stress–5.3 on a 10-point scale, compared to 4.4 for everyone else. For employed Americans who check their work email constantly on non-work days, the overall stress level is 6.0. Of course, they may be people with more stressful jobs, one symptom of which is that they are expected to check their email on non-work days.
Constant checkers were also more likely to see technology as a very or somewhat significant source of stress.
These findings are generally consistent with a 2013 study which found that the more often their participants used Facebook, the lower their moment-to-moment self-ratings of happiness and the lower their overall satisfaction with their lives.
Not surprisingly, millennials (aged 18 to 37) report greater dependence on social media.
They are also more worried about their negative effects.
It is predictable that the negative aspects of this survey will be exaggerated by the mainstream media. For example, Bloomberg News ran an article about it this morning with the understated headline “Social Media Are Driving Americans Insane.”
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