Pew Research Study: Are Social Networks Becoming Less Social?

By Karla Robinson
February 27, 2012

Pew Research released a report showing social media users are editing their pages more often and upping privacy settings “as they seek to protect their reputations in the age of digital sharing,” Reuters reports.
According to the study, 63 percent of users deleted “friends” (up from 56 percent in 2009), 44 percent said they’d deleted comments on their profiles (up from 36 percent), and 37 percent removed their names from tagged photos (up from 30 percent).
In terms of privacy, 58 percent of those surveyed set their profiles to private for only friends to see, 19 percent allowed friends of friends to view, and only 20 percent of the users kept their profiles entirely public.
“Over time, as social networking sites have become a mainstream communications channel in everyday life, profile owners have become more active managers of their profiles and the content that is posted by others in their networks,” the report states.

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