Is social media bad for you? Yes, but we still love it, say Chinese

Deteriorating eyesight, sleeplessness and a lack of concentration may not necessarily suggest you are ill.

They could just be signs of “social media syndrome” – a tendency to live your life through your online interactions – according to new research which found a growing number of China’s 700 million plus internet users recognise the potential impact on their health of extensive use of platforms such as WeChat and Weibo.

But, the study shows, the mainland’s swelling army of social media addicts have no intention of quitting just yet.

Almost 90 per cent of mainlanders surveyed by Kantar, a data investment management division of consultancy group WPP, said they were aware that social media use could have negative effects which included “reading less books, health and privacy concerns”, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2016.

But at the same time, they are happier about changes brought about by social media, with the overall ‘satisfaction’ score climbing to a new high of 79.8 compared with 67 last year.

“The research methodology on the ‘satisfactory’ score is different from previous years. But we can still see that people’s satisfaction rate over social media is higher,” said Ryan Li, general manager of media and consumption behaviour research at CTR, which led that part of the survey.