How Much Is Facebook Actually Costing You?

Do you need extra money to help you keep on top of your gas and electricity bills? Will you be able to cope if the price of utilities rises again? Do you spend most of your spare time at home chatting away to friends and uploading pictures on Facebook? You may think Facebook and utilities are unrelated however with the prices of gas and electric increasing by as much as 10% in some areas this means that you could be paying more than you have ever paid to keep your Facebook addiction going!

Relaxing is Expensive!

The popular social networking site Facebook may be completely free to access, but on top of the price for your internet there is the cost of your electricity bill to think about. So let’s say you sit for hours in front of your computer chatting away to friends or family members that you haven’t seen in years, laughing at embarrassing drunken night out photographs from the weekend, taking your mind off your recent break up or reading through his/her profile and just generally putting off the housework. The television is on not for you to watch but just for background noise and the heating is on because it’s a bit chilly. Sounding familiar to you? Most people do it, I myself am a massive culprit. But although you may not give it much thought at the time, how much is it really costing?

The Hidden Costs

The average person has a desktop computer in their house. So just for figures sake I will do my calculations off a desktop computer. If we take an estimated figure of 500W as your PSU rating this is 0.5 kW. If you were to have your computer on for 8 hours (yes that’s a long time) then that makes it 8 x 0.5kW = 4kWh. If your electricity supplier was to charge you 12p per kWh (each supplier varies) that’s 48p for 8 hours usage, doesn’t sound a lot does it? Well that’s because that’s only for the screen; you then have to include the monitor and sound which adds up to around £1 a day.
Still not sound a lot? Well let’s include the TV. Let’s say you have a plasma TV, the power consumption of a plasma TV varies but again let’s just use average figures for figures sake. A plasma TV that is switched on, uses around 2.5p an hour, so for 8 hours it would cost 20p. Altogether £1.20 for 8 hours is still not a lot is it?

How Much Extra Is It Costing You Without Realising?

This is the bit you probably were thinking “I bet they haven’t thought about this”, well I did. Most people when on their computer are also texting at the same time or on the phone to someone. On top of that don’t forget the regular checking of Facebook throughout the day/night on your mobile phone or the constant bleep from the notifications that come through. It all uses electricity as you must charge the phone, which most people do overnight. Then you have the cups of tea, the food etc. all while on Facebook on either the laptop or the phone. So therefore that £1.20 has now just turned into a full house bill.  Happy Facebooking!

So what are you going to do to save money on gas and electric bills aside from deleting your Facebook account? If you look into economy 7, you could be saving yourself tons of money every time you switch on your computer!