A 2011 study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project discovered some interesting statistics regarding current Facebook users.
The average age of the Facebook user rose to 38 in 2010 from 33 in 2008.
On an average day, 20 percent of users commented on another’s picture, 22 percent commented on another’s status, 15 percent updated their own status, 10 percent sent a private message and 26 percent selected “like” for another’s content.
The average user has 229 friends: 22 percent from high school, 9 percent from college, 10 percent from work, 8 percent are immediate family, and 7 percent are people they’ve never met (see infographic for further breakdown).
Daily engagement on Facebook by social networking users accounted for 52 percent compared to Twitter’s 36 percent, Myspace’s 7 percent and LinkedIn’s 6 percent. Another noteworthy figure: “Social media users are ‘disproportionately female,’ notes Pew, with women making up 56 percent of social networking sites, 52 percent of email users, and 55 percent of instant message users,” reports Huffington Post.
The complete 85-page Pew report is available online.
The Pew Internet Research Center found that about one-third of adults (18+ with tablets and/or app-enabled phones) use 3 to 5 apps at least once a week.
The new study examines the percentage of consumers who use their downloaded apps on a regular basis and suggests there is a significant range of adoption varying amongst different age groups.
Pew discovered that only 17 percent of phone users and 7 percent of tablet owners indicate they choose not to use apps at all.
“The share of adult cell phone owners who have downloaded an app nearly doubled in the past two years,” reports Lost Remote, “rising from 22 percent in September 2009 to 38 percent in August 2011.”
The most popularly downloaded apps were those that provided updates on news, weather, sports or stocks; helped communication with friends/family; and enabled learning about something users found personally interesting.
“And 43 percent say they’re using apps to watch TV and movies, which is likely dominated by Netflix and Hulu,” indicates the article.
Half of all adults in the United States said they use a social networking site, which is up from a mere 5 percent from six years ago when Pew Research Center conducted a similar survey.
Not surprising, 83 percent of younger people (from the 18-29 age bracket) indicate they use social networking sites, compared with 51 percent of those in the 50-64 bracket. The report lists women ages 18 to 29 as “the power users.”
Asked for one word to describe their social networking experience, the most common response was “good.”
However, one in five respondents sounded less upbeat: they used words like “boring,” “time-consuming” and “overrated” to describe their experience.