Why People Feel They Need a Break from Facebook

A new study, Coming and Going On Facebook,  from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 61% of Facebook users have taken a “voluntary break” from the service for several weeks or more, and 20% of the online adults who don’t use Facebook said they did once but quit.

The study also found that 67% of American adults are Facebook users compared to 20% who use Linked-In and 16% that use Twitter.

Reasons

When you look at the reasons, concerns about privacy/security/ads/spam came out pretty low at only 4%.  The biggest reason (21%) was “too busy/didn’t have time for it,” followed by “just wasn’t interested/ Just didn’t  like it” and “Waste of time/ Content was not relevant  which both came in at 10%.   “Too much drama/gossip/negative/conflict” came in at 9%.

Another surprise, at least to me, was that “didn’t like posting all the time /didn’t want to share” came in last at 1%.

Reasons for taking a Facebook break (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project)
Reasons for taking a Facebook break (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project)