The Invisible Effects of Social Media: When It's Time to Stop Scrolling

a post by Jacqueline Handman for the Tiny Buddha blog


“What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” ~Unknown

Is there a more precious commodity than time? It’s the currency of life; the most basic finite resource, and we have a responsibility to spend it wisely. It’s up to us each individually to figure out what that means to us. For me, that means being mindful of the people, activities, and thoughts to which I give my time and energy.

I am an obsessive reader, and at any one time I have at least fifteen books checked out of the library. I tell myself that I won’t check out any more books until I’ve finished reading the ones I’ve already borrowed, but I never listen and I’m glad for it, because reading is one of the wisest and most enjoyable ways I can spend my time.

I try to be cognizant of what grows my spirit and what shrinks it, and I aim to use my time accordingly.

But this is hardly an easy task, especially with the constant lure of technology and smartphones. Unlike with books, the escape these devices offer can quickly lead me down a rabbit hole of anxiety where I feel my inspiration leaking away and self-doubt taking its place.

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Dual careers, time-use and satisfaction levels: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

an article by Daniel Wheatley and Zhongmin Wu (Nottingham Trent University, UK) published in Industrial Relations Journal Volume 45 Issue 5 (September 2014)

Abstract

This article empirically examines time-use and its impact on satisfaction levels among dual career households in a post-industrial economy, the UK.

Analysis explores the 1993–2009 British Household Panel Survey using panel probit regression.

The evidence reveals distinctions in time-use relative to gender, occupations and employment sector. Long hours persist among managers and professionals. The uneven division of household labour, further, continues to burden women with extensive amounts of housework and care.

Satisfaction with working hours and amount/use of leisure time are lower among women, especially the public sector professionals. Provision of care, occupation and partner employment characteristics represent important satisfaction determinants present among women, while income (including partner's income) only has relevance among men.

Housework does not itself generate dissatisfaction. It is the overload of household tasks, due to inequality in the household division of labour, which constrains many highly skilled working women reducing satisfaction with time-use and life overall.

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Time for work, commuting, and parenting? Commuting parents' involvement with their children

an article by Jennifer M. StGeorge and Richard J. Fletcher (University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia) published in Community, Work & Family Volume 15 Issue 3 (2012 )

Abstract

For most Australian parents, there is continuing tension between work and family commitments. This tension is exacerbated by the need not only to have sufficient time available to children in the family but also for that time to be characterised by nurturance and guidance.

This article reports on a qualitative study that explored how 21 part-time or full-time working parents, who also commute 10–15 hours a week to work, manage both the quantity and quality of their time with their young children (0–5 years).

The study revealed the difficult conditions of commuting and the importance of social support to parents’ well-being, as well as a significant pattern of parent-child interaction which we have described as ‘attentive parenting’.

Parents felt these activities contributed to the parent–child bond and their children’s well-being in spite of an acknowledged lack of interactive time.

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