Facebook users are logging off for weeks at a time for reasons ranging from lack of time to ‘too much drama’, new research shows. 

Two-thirds (61%) of Facebook users in the US have taken a break of several weeks or more, a Pew Research Center study has found. 

The top reason for taking a break was lack of time (21%), 10% said they felt the site was a waste of time, and 9% felt there was too much drama or gossip from other users. 

One in five online users in the survey said they’d given up on Facebook entirely, for similar reasons to those cited by people taking ‘Facebook holidays’. 

However, with 67% of online American adults using Facebook, it remains the dominant social networking site. 

Around 41% of Facebook users said they checked into the site more often in 2012 than the past, up from 33% in 2011. 

Social media use is still growing – 69% of online adults in the US use some kind of social networking site, up from 47% in September 2009

“People are trying to make new calibrations in their life to accommodate new social tools,” said Lee Raine, director of the Pew Internet Project and co-author of the new report. “They are adding up the pluses and minuses on a kind of networking balance sheet and they are trying to figure out how much they get out of connectivity versus how much they put into it.” 

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Smarayda Christoforou