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While we spend hours glued to the computer screen, staring at our favorite social networking site and checking out the latest updates posted by our friends, we often fail to realize that we are missing out on something precious - physical activity.

The ever-growing popularity of social networking sites has also resulted in an increasing number of children and adolescents losing out on physical activities, sports, etc., contributing to the growing number of overweight and obese people.

A new research by the University of Ulster shows how social networking activity is associated with the levels of physical activity in individuals.

Emer O'Leary, a Masters degree student, undertook the research under the guidance of psychologists, Dr Wendy Cousins and Dr Tadhg Macintyre at the University of Ulster, Medical Xpress reported.

The study that involved about 350 students who were asked to complete an online survey found that majority of the students who used social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter spent, on average, an hour online everyday.

When quizzed about physical activity, it was found that just over half of the participants could be classified as "moderately active" and a third were "high activity," with 12.7 percent falling into the "low physical activity" group. One-fourth of the students reported participating in team sports.  

In the final analysis of the results, the researchers concluded that the time spent on social networking websites was inversely proportional to the respondents' level of physical activity in the previous week.

They also found that Facebook fans were also less likely to participate in team sports, though this effect was less pronounced.

"Time is a finite resource, so time spent in social networking must come at the expense of other activities. Our study suggests that physical activity may be one of those activities. Our findings are intriguing, but we have not conclusively demonstrated that social networking causes lower levels of physical activity. We will need to carry out more research to see if it really is a case of Facebook makes you fat rather than Twitter makes you fitter," Dr Cousins said.

The study was presented at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology in Liverpool.