Research by Ohio State reports a link between time spend on Facebook and academic performance. (“Facebook Use Linked to Less Textbook Time“, USA Today). Students who said they used Facebook reported grade-point averages between 3.0 and 3.5; those who don’t use it said they average 3.5 to 4.0. Also, Facebook users said they studied one to five hours a week, vs. non-users’ 11 hours or more. Students who spend their time accumulating friends, chatting and “poking” others on the site may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work.

There’s no question that effective use of social media requires an enormous amount of time. 65% of the students in the Ohio State study who use Facebook reported using using it at least once every day, and many were accessing it multiple times. A study of marketers who are using social media says nearly two-thirds (64%) of are using social media for five hours or more each week, with 39% using it 10 or more hours weekly. 10% are spending more than 20 hours each week with social media. In my own work, I find that ‘social media creep’ has set in. I now devote several hours a day to two blogs and Tweetdeck. I’ve been blogging for about a year now, and I devote more time to it every month. According to this study, I am pretty typical:

The survey found that there is a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, the median weekly time commitment is two hours per week. However, for those who have been at it for months, the median jumps to 10 hours per week. For those who report social media marketing use for years, the median is 20+ hours each week.

So what is the ROI on all that precious time that’s being invested? Is it ‘worth it’? I suppose it depends on what kind of reward you are looking for.

At the most basic level, social media is entertainment, that’s why it’s called ‘media’. Does entertainment need an ‘ROI’? If it replaces other entertainment like TV, sports or and video games, I would say ‘no’. However, if it eats into study or work time, the answer is ‘yes’.

There are more productive ways to develop social skills (see the Dentyne campaign for examples). According to my Millennial daughter, “there are plenty of people completely lacking social skills on Facebook, that’s why they’re on facebook
rather than interacting and using said social skills.” The skills students are developing in ‘personal branding’ also should be considered a poor tradeoff when thousands of dollars are being spent on education. But for marketers, boomers, and other professionals, the answer may depend on how social media ‘rewards’ are measured.

Accenture surveyed 3000 adults of all ages on their adoption of various technologies. The findings show there has been a very rapid adoption of blogging, podcasts and other social media among older consumers over the past year — and a leveling off among Millennials. In fact, Accenture’s research found “boomers increased their uptake of popular consumer technology applications at an average of 50 percent last year, nearly 20 times faster than Generation Y.”

* Boomers increased their rate of reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year-over-year. That’s nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent).

* Boomers posted a 59 percent increase in use of social networking sites, more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent).

* Boomers increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent,while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent).

Marketers appear to be happy with the rewards of their social media activities. 81% say their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. At least two in three participants found that increased traffic occurred with as little as 6 hours a week invested in social media marketing, while those who have been doing this for years reported better results. The study also found more than half of participants reported a rise in search engine rankings. Improved search engine rankings were most prevalent among those who’ve been using social media for years, with nearly 80% reporting a rise. Though about one in two found social media generated qualified leads, only about one in three said social media marketing helped close business, and this number goes up as high as 61% for those using SM longer. Finally, most strongly agree that marketing costs dropped when social media marketing was implemented.

For non-marketing types, the rewards also appear to be worth the time. According to Accenture, “they are likely adding life-enriching experiences that they see the younger generation adopting, and striving to remain intellectually and technologically literate, versatile and job-skill competitive.” Not bad for something that is also entertaining. No wonder newspapers and TV are having a hard time competing in the attention game!

In the end, how you measure ‘worth it’ may depend on what activity is being displaced. In my case, it is sleep. I think most Millennials would agree that is a reasonable tradeoff.