How much time do you put into social networking?

I've been thinking a lot lately about how and why people use social networking communities like Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. At the end of the day, what do you really get out of  all the time that you put into it? For me, my time is probably my most precious commodity, and I find that I have very little of it to spend on activities that don't show some form of a "Personal ROI". In other words, I need to get something out the process; mentally, spiritually, physically, financially, whatever.

I came across a post recently called "How Much Time Does Web 2.0 Take?" on a site called "Museum 2.0". According to the site, the purpose is "to explore the ways that the philosophies of Web 2.0 can be applied in museums to make them more engaging, community-based, vital elements of society."

It's a really nice post, written for an audience that is not a bunch of social networking junkies. The gist is to try and explain how "normal people" can participate in social networking activities based on how much time they have to invest.

(image courtesy of Museum 2.0)

This feels about right to me, although there are a few holes and the far right can be left to interpretation. Twitter is a fairly low-impact activity on my time, and I seem to get a lot out of it right now, so my Personal ROI for Twitter is pretty high. Blogging certainly takes more time, but it's a creative outlet for me and seems worth the effort.

How many hours a weeks do you spend on social networking, and is any of it generating a Personal ROI for you?

Comments

[Kelly H.]

Interesting post, Zimm. With Social Networks popping up hourly, the competition for time and eyeballs is pretty fierce. We (BLAST) are pulling our clients into the Social Media landscape to increase awareness and gain traction at a grass roots level. I find myself personally being pretty picky with the outlets I choose to participate -mostly from a privacy standpoint I suppose. One thing for sure, I don't they are a fad and are here to stay!

[Ade]

I think using Twitter takes a lot more time than the graph indicates. The problem isn't the time it takes to post, or to attract followers, but the time you lose when reading updates frequently.

From http://tinyurl.com/3xmsuh : "In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages."

So basically if you stop what you're doing to read a tweet, you may be losing on average 15 minutes of productivity per tweet.

I certainly notice an increase in productivity on the days that I turn off my Twitter client and just check in a couple set times during the day.