It comes as no surprise that social networking is one of the top online activities, exceeded only by email and search according the Pew Internet Project. The most noteworthy finding of a new Pew report on social networking is that its growth is most pronounced among older Americans:
The frequency of social networking site usage among young adult internet users under age 30 was stable over the last year – 61% of online Americans in that age cohort now use social networking sites on a typical day, compared with 60% one year ago. However, among the Boomer-aged segment of internet users ages 50-64, social networking site usage on a typical day grew a significant 60% (from 20% to 32%)
According to the Pew telephone-based survey (n=2,277) 65 percent of online adults use social networks (50 percent of all US adults). An earlier Pew report found that among social networking 92 percent were on Facebook.
In 2005, when Pew first asked about social network usage only 8 percent of US online adults respondent affirmatively.
Pew found that women outnumber men on social networking sites, with 69 percent of online women and 60 percent of online men using them. On a daily basis the numbers are 48 percent and 38 percent respectively.
Pew also segmented responses by age group, with the strongest growth reflected in the 30 to 64 age categories. This makes sense because younger users were social networking’s early adopters.
These data indicate there’s still more room for growth among those over 30, especially among older Americans — and in terms of daily usage across the board.
I asked the report’s author Mary Madden why there was no discussion of social networking and privacy in the findings. She said privacy will be part of a larger report to be released later.
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Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: General | Stats: Popularity | Stats: Size
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