I have been discussing the cost-benefit dimensions of social media such as Facebook, Twitter (now X), LinkedIn, and YouTube with family, close friends, peers and colleagues for some time. It occurs to me that we often underestimate the seriousness of this issue or focus exclusively on the perceived advantages of emerging technologies and social media platforms. I believe it is essential to reflect collectively on the costs as well and develop a coherent strategy-one that maximizes the benefits while minimizing the rapidly escalating financial and non-financial costs of social media to households, societies, and economies. More importantly, as if the digital divide is not bad enough, developing countries are incurring significant economic and social costs even before fully integrating into ICT systems and embracing social media platforms. Devising appropriate strategies to reduce the opportunity costs and maximize benefits of social media is more urgent today than ever before. To that end, the present article provides useful starting points for parents, communities and policymakers in developing counties.
At the outset, it is important to constantly remind ourselves that, throughout history, new technologies have been developed with noble intentions—to solve pressing societal problems, enhance human wellbeing, and advance collective progress. Yet, time and again, these innovations are diverted from their original purpose and exploited for personal gain, power, or malice. The fault, therefore, does not lie with the technologies themselves, which are morally neutral tools, but with the choices made by the people who wield them. The below discussed alarming rise in opportunity costs—whether measured in eroded privacy, fractured social trust, deepening inequality, or existential risk—stems not from the existence of powerful new tools. Rather it originates from how frequently, for what motives, and with what safeguards fellow human beings decide to use or abuse them.
One way to understand financial or economic costs that social media imposes on societies and economies is to explore the “opportunity cost” associated with its use. Such costs can be estimated for individuals, households, firms, societies, or economies by using different methodologies. Economists have long been preoccupied, for good reasons, with how to quantify opportunity costs. Technically, opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative forgone when a particular choice is made. For example, choosing a university education over immediate work means losing years of potential earnings. Similarly, cash sitting idle means missing out on investment returns. Although the idea of opportunity cost can be abstract, it is critically important in both personal and policy decisions because it reveals hidden social and economic costs often overlooked. This article does not focus on the concept itself but rather aims to highlight the hidden price tag of social media by roughly estimating the monetary value of hours spent on these platforms each day.
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Optimal use, winners and losers
The initial thinking was that social media addresses information asymmetry between “centers” and “peripheries” and facilitates timely decision-making. Indeed, it proved important in breaking distance and isolation by bringing information to users in real-time. Available evidence shows that activists and politically dissatisfied youth often use social media to mobilize and organize themselves in protesting against governments, most often spontaneously and without adequate preparation for the would-be political transition. Social media-driven youth movements were instrumental for galvanizing the Arab Spring, leading to regime changes in Egypt and Tunisia (Khondker:2011, Howard and Hussain:2013) and recently in Bangladesh, Nepal and Madagascar. It also served as “democracies’ fourth wave” (Brunson and Wade:2024) in developed and developing countries by exposing egregious human rights violations, the impacts of conflicts and wars on societies, police brutality and massive corruption (Sethuraman et al: 2023). Although evidence is patchy, in some cases, social media is credited with playing a vital role in revealing cultural diversity and brining peoples of different backgrounds (particularly the youth) together across the world.
However, such vital roles do not justify or compensate for foregone (opportunity) costs entrained by social media which could otherwise have been minimized. More importantly, the benefits of social media are far less than the initial euphoria particularly in bridging information gaps and correcting asymmetry. In fact, in some cases, social media widens the information gaps that matter most. For example, it can disrupt the teaching-learning process, undermining education. It can also misinform or misdirect critical knowledge via an erroneous or less understood algorithm. Moreover, it can increase frauds and loss of privacy (personal information) or identity theft, further entrenching systemic vulnerabilities to scammers. In politically polarized and ethno-linguistically and religiously divided countries, authoritative studies reveal the “organizing and dividing” power of social media. Walter (2022) provided incontrovertible evidence on how disfranchised groups and political elites capitalize social media to instil fear and outrage to achieve their respective objectives. This is not to negate the importance of optimal usage of social media for personal consumption, although there is no consensus on what can be described as “optimal usage”. For some, optimal usage may mean the best time or spot when one captures all the real benefits while minimizing the cost, protecting personal health, and avoiding the risk of addiction. For others, it can be regarded as a moment of breaking isolation and self-entertaining at no cost.
It is equally important to note that social media is a business that involves winners and losers. The real winners are owners of social media platforms and their shareholders; major advertising companies and entities; leading brands, trademark, and patent holders; data brokers, influencers, and creators; application developers, political actors, state machinery, and propagandists. There are also indirect beneficiaries, such as journalists, activists, and those who effectively network, coordinate, and get free information (e.g., on customer behaviours or consumption patterns). The rest of us, particularly those who spend 3-8 hours/day on social media, are net losers. Teens and young adults are immediate casualties, suffering from attention deficiency, sleep pattern disruptions, cyber-bullying, and parents who bear the ultimate brunt of all these. Eventually, the net losers are families and societies who are not the highest bidders in a perfectly competitive (free) market of social media.
What Social Media Really Costs? And why it matters?
Generally, studies show that people who spend between 0 and 60 minutes/day on social media win the game. But those who spend on average more than 2 hours/ day significantly lose. Five hours a day, which is characterised as a high level of addiction, is no longer an outlier. For millions, it has become the default evening. In Nigeria and the Philippines, the national average already tops four hours (Lin et al:2025, Spiralytics:2025, SQ Magazing:2025). In the United States, roughly 33 million adults (10 % of the population) now meet clinical or self-reported criteria for social media addiction (DemandSage:2025). Worldwide, including broader internet addiction, the figure is approximately 210 million people (University of Michigan Research:2017, DemandSage:2025). This figure is almost equal to the combined population of Egypt and Ethiopia, or larger than the sum of the populations of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
By translating those five daily hours into time units, we can see that this amounts to:
- 35 hours a week – a full work week
- 152 hours a month – almost four full work weeks
- 1,826 hours a year – more than the average OECD employee works (1,750 hours).
Taking the OECD average hourly wage of US$31.94, the total lost time equals 1,826 hours, which is equal to US$58,351 per person per year. Across 210 million addicted users worldwide, the aggregate opportunity cost to the global economy approaches $12.25 trillion annually – roughly 11–12 % of global GDP. Even if only 20–30 % of that time could realistically be converted into paid work, higher education, or health-producing activity, the macroeconomic loss remains breathtaking. The total estimated opportunity cost, when compared with African economies, represents more than fourfold of the continent’s 2024 aggregate GDP estimated at US$2.8 trillion or nearly 6.5-fold of the US$1.9 trillion GDP of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The economic loss at the household, industry, or country-level in developing countries, particularly in Africa, largely depends on the degree of internet penetration, connectivity, and access; uninterrupted supply of electricity; smartphone availability (affordability); and the proportion of a technology-savvy population.
Beyond financial losses what other costs does social media entail?
Further research (Alonzo et al, 2024; Ahmed et al, 2024; Lin et al, 2025; Ozdemir et al:2024) indicates that the deepest damage is not financial or economic only. There are also huge social and personal costs in the form of lowered attention performance (especially at schools), doubled suicide risks (rates), lost human (face-to-face) interaction, and colossal hours of sleep deprivation per year per smartphone. Five hours a day is not “relaxation.” Rather it is one of the largest voluntary transfers of human potential in history – from individuals and societies straight into the revenue streams of a handful of technology companies, owners, and shareholders. It is also exposing consumers to targeted advertisements based on the algorithm used to track consumer behaviours and patterns.
What can be done to minimize the opportunity cost of social media
Globally, the productive force – youth and students alike – is experiencing prolonged or persistent exposure to social media. Developed countries have been working hard to address social media addiction on a scale and magnitude comparable to efforts to combat addictions to drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, just to name a few. Some countries (e.g., France and Australia have put in place “right to disconnect” laws. In the U.S., school districts now send parents annual statements showing the dollar value of learning time lost to the use of phones in classes. At the industry level, companies such as Volkswagen, Daimler, and several Fortune-500 firms block social platforms on work devices and report 15–25 % productivity gains (Bloomberg:2024, Forbs 2025; Harvard Business Review:2024, Reuters:2024, The Guardian:2024).
Contrary to ongoing efforts in developed countries, aside from politically orchestrated, occasional internet shutdowns and social media bans in a few African countries, to date, there have not yet been regulatory or institutionalized actions to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of social media in developing countries. This is despite the fact that developing countries where social media penetration exceeded 60-70 % (among the youth) with an average daily use of 4 hours, the opportunity cost can be colossal. Such excessive use adversely affects education and skills formation, business and entrepreneurship, health and wellbeing, further exacerbating inequality, youth unemployment and poverty.
Sadly, in many countries- developed and developing, the technology and social media platforms that were praised for bringing “unlimited human connectivity” are entailing unprecedented socioeconomic challenges, breaking existing socio-cultural fabrics and relations. It is time to put in place clear rules and regulations to make social media engagements optimal or manageable. This helps to improve attention deficiency for students, boost labour productivity, and restore sleepless nights resulting from addictions. With clear rules and regulations as well as relentless awareness-raising campaigns, it is also possible to reclaim the 1,826 hours lost. This can be done by periodically silencing smartphones and by limiting social media exposure to a maximum of 60 minutes a day. The hours saved each day can be put to more productive uses and valuable activities, broadening quality time for individuals, households, and societies. Deliberate efforts should also be made to use this valuable time to develop a high-value skill (language learning, coding, cooking, writing, design, professional certification, etc). These, in parallel with developing new hobbies and increased focus on professional tasks are among the effective mechanisms to minimize the opportunity cost and maximize benefits from social media. At the legal and institutional levels, it is critically important to develop social safeguards and similar mechanism along with developing or operationalizing new technologies with the aim of minimizing their opportunity costs and maximizing socioeconomic benefits. However, this cannot be done without full understanding of the hidden costs of social media and without collaboration between and among states and other stakeholders including families and communities.
Similarly, interpersonal relationship-focused studies and longitudinal data reveal that strong relationships are the single biggest predictor of happiness and longevity, worth far more than any “likes or follower-counts” on social media. Well-informed and smart people have already turned their social media time into personal development and/or team-based life enriching (qualitative) activities. These have significantly improved their sleep patterns, efficiency at work, and banking back their lost hours. The best version of one’s life is achieved by following the examples of successful individuals who create time instead of wasting it on social media without a defined purpose and no defined objectives. For developing countries, drawing lessons from successful developed and fellow- developing countries, what is vital is to integrate digital literacy into national school curriculum including in primary and secondary schools with a focus on optimal and productive use social media, effective time management skills and balancing online and offline activities. National awareness-raising campaigns, parental mediation, and enforcing age verification and time limit regulations can also play vital role in minimizing the opportunity costs to societies and economies. Governments, families and communities can also establish community-based harm reduction hubs, centers that monitor and signal alarming addiction levels, and prioritize and subsidize alternative activities to digital ones.
References
Ahmed et al. (2024). Social Media Use, Mental Health and sleep: A systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Journal of Affective Disorder, 367, 701712.
Alonzo et al. (2024). The Impact of Social Media Use on Sleep and Mental Health in Youth: A Scoping Review. Current Psychiatry Report, 26 (3) 104119.
Bloomberg: “Big Tech and Autos Clash over email Bans in Europe”, (Published 5 November 2025.
Brunson, R. K., & Wade, L. (2024). Participant accounts of police violence during Black Lives Matter protests. Policing and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2024.2366789.
DemandSage: Social Media Addiction Statistics 2025 (Facts & Data), Published 8 October 2025.
Forbs: “How Right to Disconnect Laws Are Boosting Productivity in Europe” (Published 10 July 2025).
Harvard Business Review: “The Case for Banning After-Hours Emails and social media at work (Published September 2024).
Howard, P. N., & Hussain, M. M. (2013). Democracy’s fourth wave? Digital media and the Arab Spring. Oxford University Press.
Khondker, H. H. (2011). Role of the new media in the Arab Spring. Globalizations, 8(5), 675–679. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2011.621287
Lin et al. (2025). The impact of Social Media Addiction and the Negative Emotions of Adolescent Athletes: The Mediating role of Physical appearance comparisons and Sleeps. Frontiers in public Health, 12:1452796
Ozdemir et al. (2024). Investigating Social Media Addiction on Academic Self-Efficacy and Academic Success among University Students. Frontiers in Public Health, 12:1359691.
Reuters: “German carmakers lead o workers right to disconnect from emails” (Published 12 March 2024).
Spiralytics: Social Media in the Philippines. Facts and Statistics (2025), Published 8 October 2025.
SQ Magazine: Social Media Screen Time Statistics (2025), Published 2 October 2025.
Sethuraman, A., et al. (2023). Changes in public–police cooperation following the murder of George Floyd. Policing: An International Journal, 46(1), 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-05-2022-0075.
The Guardian: “The right to disconnect: How Europe is Leading the fight against the always on-culture (Published 15 January 2024.
University of Michigan Research (2017). A foundation study by researchers at the University of Michigan, Published in Technology in Society (Longstreet & Brooks, 2017).
Walter, F.B. (2022). How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them. Crown Publishing. United States of America (2022).
