addiction to SNS -mixi fatigue-

SNS has become one of the important communication tools to build social relations today. Because of its function, there is a trend that many SNS users become addicted to SNS and the addiction to SNS has become an issue in the world now. In Japan, there is an increase in number of people who are exhausted to use SNS, “mixi” derived from the addiction.

“mixi” have more than 10 million users and 80% share of social networking market, and become the biggest social networking site in Japan. This is a typical social networking sites that users can invite their friends to join communities, send and receive messages, write a diary, read and write a comment on diaries written by others.

The function of “Ashiato” (footprint) allows users to see who visit their page. This function makes users to keep writing diaries and lead an addiction to mixi. Now, there is a phenomenon that some Japanese people experience a sense of tiredness because of using mixi and desire to discontinue and then tend to quit mixi finally. This is called “mixi tsukare” (mixi fatigue).

The users, who get a comment on their diary from their friends, should comment on friends’ diary as expressing their thanks. This exchange of comment and diary play an important role and a way of communication within mixi. However, this method seems to obligate users to comment back and then this become heavy burden for users.

SNS makes it possible to connect a large number of people and play an important role as communication tool. We need to think how to deal with it, otherwise we might be tired of it.