Young Indian urbanites log onto social networks less frequently now than they used to, according to a survey carried out by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.
“Tech overload is apparent among youth and their fixation with social media seems to be eroding as they have started focusing on more important things than grooming their digital identities,” according to the organisation, which is often known as Assocham.
The organisation said its representatives questioned 2,000 people (equal numbers of each gender) aged 12 to 25 in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune between October and December 2011 About 55 per cent of respondents said they have consciously reduced the amount of time they spend on social media websites such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Orkut, Linkedin, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, and BigAdda.
They said they were no longer as active and enthusiastic about their favourite social networks as when they first signed up for the services. Nearly 30 per cent of these said they have deactivated or deleted their accounts and profiles from these websites. Most of the remaining respondents said they have started maintaining low profiles on the social networks as their privacy was being breached.
About 75 per cent of the total sample said they had made a profile or an account on almost all of these websites, which was a fad when the websites were launched. But most of them said they barely use them anymore and prefer sticking to a single site.
About 20 per cent of all the respondents said they hardly log onto social networking websites, and prefer staying in touch via chat applications like Blackberry Messenger, Watsapp, Nimbuzz, Mig33, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger on their mobiles and computers. The survey noted that young Indian women seem to use social networks more than their male counterparts.
