That's why you lose so much time on Facebook

Researchers have discovered that we feel a real 'time lag' when we enter social networks.

You open Facebook just to peek, and when you realize it, you've been there for hours. How did this happen? Psychologists at the University of Kent in the UK conducted a survey and found that when people surf the internet or use the social network, they have a "poor perception of time." And more: the creation of Mark Zuckerberg is who else causes it. 

In the study, titled  Internet and Facebook Related Images Affect the Perception of Time , scientists have attempted to understand how "attention" and "excitement", feelings that remain in the forefront during the periods in which we are connected, influence our perception of hours .

The conclusion was that Facebook makes people lose track of time - much more than the rest of the internet. But both are able to distort time.

To reach this result , the researchers monitored 44 people. They were exposed to 20 images: five photos were associated with Facebook (such as images of someone's everyday life, weddings, trips, etc.), five were generic internet things (such as sites of specific interest) and the others were Neutral. Participants had to self-assess the time they spent looking at each of the photos.

The survey  showed that people underestimated the time they looked at Facebook images - that is, they believed the timing had been brief, but it was not. This means that the images that portray social relationships cause excitement and, consequently, hold our attention more. This also explains why we spend so much time looking at the little blue screen - our brain simply can not measure the passage of time when we are on social networks.

The next step , according to the researchers, is to study how this perception of time ends up creating addictive behavior. Is it going to roll a detox for who is "Facebook addicted"?