The social media infographic from the blog Learn Stuff below contains some really interesting data on the impact of social media on the American (U.S.) economy. But the premise of the infographic is questionable. It starts out with the idea that social media harms productivity. For example, it states that 22 percent of our time is spent on social media. It claims that people spend two-and-a-half times more time on Facebook than exercising. And that 12 billion collective hours are spent online browsing social networks each day.
But then it asserts these actions cost the U.S. Economy $650 million annually. That’s wrong. It’s incorrect because the actions of browsing, especially on YouTube actually makes money for 2 million content producers that YouTube calls partners – like myself. Social media exchanges are, at times, about products and retail services – those idea sharing actions can drive huge product purchases. It’s widely agreed that social media approval of a product or service can drive success. Just look at the increasing chance that a movie studio invests $128K in a promoted tweet, so people can know about their new flick.
None of that is incorporated in this infographic.
With that, here it is:
