These days the "Facebook" phenomenon has reached a fever pitch with people spending more and more of their leisure time on social media than ever. In this post, I'm going to present some numerical data related to Facebook to put things in perspective. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the software giant Infosys once said, " In God we trust, everything else must come up with data." So let's get started.
A recent news article states that the number of active users on Facebook from India has crossed the 100 million mark. (This is a very timely article as I needed a good rounded figure to use in my example below and what better a number than 100). Out of this 100 million, more than 80% of the users are in the 18-44 age group per this website. People in this age group are supposed to be the most productive in the whole population in terms of contributing to the GDP of the country. Now let's assume that these 80 million people spend about an hour daily on average on Facebook. Out of this let's say 50% of the time is spent in playing online games, watching videos that have no "entertainment value" or no constructive purpose. So if we do the math and add up the numbers we get 80 million x 1 hour x 0.5 = 40 million man-hours lost per day. That's a huge number! Let's look at it from another angle. If a person works 40 hours a week, this time is equivalent to 1 million man-weeks. In other words, if all the 80 million people reduced their Facebook time by 50%, then a million (10,00,000) lucky people could go on a holiday for another week without affecting the overall productivity of the nation. How about that! And I haven't even accounted for time spent on online games outside of Facebook and other social media sites such as twitter etc or even youtube.
Now, I know all those Facebook lovers would argue that you can't measure everything in terms of GDP or money and that we need some entertainment and social interaction after working hard in our daily jobs. I agree that we need some social interaction but I doubt how much real social interaction Facebook actually provides and I don't want to get into that debate here. The point I'm trying to make here is with "leisure time" becoming a rare thing in today's world, shouldn't we be using it more judicially? We all have limited time in our lifetime. Why not make the best use of it? I find it amusing when people these days are debating (read fighting) for hours on Facebook about who should be the next prime minister of India; Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi or Arwind Kejriwal . Instead of that, if those hours were spent volunteering for a local NGO for a good cause they would be making a more positive impact on the nation.
So think about this next time when you log on to Facebook or any other social media site. Remember that time is the most important thing, more important than money. With that let me end this post by a short story:
"A businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while.
The businessman then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor."
The businessman then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor."
The businessman scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?" To which the businessman replied, "15-20 years." "But what then, señor?" The businessman laughed and said, "That's the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions." "Millions, señor? Then what?" The businessman said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, "Isn't that what I'm doing right now?"
-Author Unknown"
(Story taken from http://www.lifeprinciples.net/SuccessatLife.html)
Your's Truly,
P.
