Going Too Far

Ars Technica reports: That was good for me—was it good for you? Hang on, I need to tweet this.

If you have heard or uttered some variation of the above phrase anytime recently, you might be a social-media user under the age of 35. Shopping site Retrevo.com recently investigated the grip that sites like Twitter and Facebook have on Internet users' lives and found that the under-35 crowd in particular is on the verge of needing social-media rehab.

Retrevo discovered that those under 35 took the opportunity to tweet, text, and post to Facebook at times that might be considered inappropriate to an older generation. The most amusing statistic from this is, of course, the "after sex" column—36 percent of under-35 users admitted to checking Twitter/Facebook/texts immediately after getting it on, while only 8 percent of those over 35 fell into this category.

It also turns out that men are twice as likely as women to engage in a postcoital social-media update (honestly, we can't even dream up an explanation for that one), and iPhone users are three times more likely to do so than BlackBerry owners. There's no word on whether iPhone owners also fire up one of the many smoking-themed apps after sex.

Post-sex wasn't the only time when this group found themselves addicted to social media. Almost as many under-35s (34 percent) admitted to updating their favorite sites while on a date compared to 9 percent of those over 35. Additionally, 40 percent of under-35s said they did so while driving—stop texting and driving, fools!—and 65 percent said they updated while on vacation. The over-35 crowd seemed most comfortable updating while on vacation as well, with 41 percent of the group admitting to doing so.

In some ways, the data isn't all that surprising. It's no secret that those who are into social media (Twitter in particular) tend to be more engaged online than those who aren't, so certain types of people are always going to participate in Internet-related activities seemingly all the time. At the same time, there are situations in which doing so just doesn't seem like it will ever become socially acceptable, but that may change as the Facebook generation gets older and sets the new standard for what's normal to do during a date—or after sex.