73% of online adults now use social networking sites
January 23, 2014 by Maeve Duggan, Aaron Smith
Click here to view original article for larger diagram pictures
Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind.1 Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms. Some 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites. In addition, Instagram users are nearly as likely as Facebook users to check in to the site on a daily basis. These are among the key findings on social networking site usage and adoption from a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project.
Despite recent growth by services such as Pinterest and Instagram, Facebook remains the dominant social networking platform
As in previous Pew Research surveys of social networking usage, Facebook remains the dominant player in the social networking space. Some 71% of online adults are now Facebook users, a slight increase from the 67% of online adults who used Facebook as of late 2012.
While Facebook is popular across a diverse mix of demographic groups, other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles. For example, Pinterest holds particular appeal to female users (women are four times as likely as men to be Pinterest users), and LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and internet users in higher income households. Twitter and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults, urban dwellers, and non-whites. And there is substantial overlap between Twitter and Instagram user bases.
Facebook and Instagram exhibit especially high levels of user engagement: A majority of users on these sites check in to them on a daily basis
In addition to being the most commonly used social networking platform of the five we measured, Facebook also has high levels of engagement among its users: 63% of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40% doing so multiple times throughout the day. Instagram and Twitter have a significantly smaller number of users than Facebook does, but users of these sites also tend to visit them frequently. Some 57% of Instagram users visit the site at least once a day (with 35% doing so multiple times per day), and 46% of Twitter users are daily visitors (with 29% visiting multiple times per day).
42% of online adults use multiple social networking platforms. For those who use only one social networking site, Facebook is typically—though not always—the platform of choice.
Overall, 42% of online adults use two or more of these social networks, while 36% use only one (the remaining 22% did not use any of the five specific sites we asked about). Among those who only use one major social networking platform, 84% say that Facebook is the single site that they frequent. However, other “single platform” social networking site users have adopted a site other than Facebook as their platform of choice. Among those who use just one social networking site, 8% use LinkedIn, 4% use Pinterest, and 2% each say that Instagram or Twitter is their sole social networking site.
A note on the social networking platforms measured in this survey
In this survey, we only asked about a subset of the social networking sites that people use. The Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project has collected recent data on the use of other social networking platforms – especially in the context of getting news. To read their material about other sites such as YouTube, Google+, Tumblr, Reddit, and Vine, please go to http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/14/news-use-across-social-media-platforms/.
About this survey
The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from August 7 to September 16, 2013, among a sample of 1,801 adults, age 18 and older. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (901) and cell phone (900, including 482 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. For results based on Internet users (n=1,445), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Demographics of key social networking platforms
Fully 71% of online adults now use Facebook, and usage among seniors has increased significantly in the last year. Some 45% of internet users age 65 or older now use Facebook, up from 35% who did so in late 2012. Women are also particularly likely to use Facebook compared with men.
Some 18% of online adults currently use Twitter, statistically similar to the 16% who did so in 2012. As was the case in our previous surveys on Twitter use, adoption levels are particularly high among younger adults and African-Americans.
Some 17% of online adults use Instagram, up from 13% in late 2012. Two groups in particular have experienced a notable increase in Instagram usage in the last year. Instagram adoption by internet users ages 18-29 has increased from 28% in late 2012 to 37% in 2013, and adoption by African American internet users has increased from 23% to 34% over the same time period. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2013.
Some 21% of online adults use Pinterest, up from the 15% who did so in December 2012. Women continue to dominate the site: fully 33% of online women are Pinterest users, compared to just 8% of men. Pinterest users also skew slightly towards the affluent side – those in the highest income bracket are more likely than those in the lowest to use the site, as are those with a college degree or higher compared to those who have not attended college.
Some 22% of online adults are LinkedIn users. As a platform geared towards professional networking, its user demographics are unique from the other sites discussed above. Specifically, LinkedIn usage is especially high among people with a college degree or higher, and among those with an annual household income of $75,000 or more. It is also the only social networking site we measured for which usage among 50-64 year olds is higher than usage among those ages 18-29.
Frequency of social media use
When asked how often they visit the social networking sites they use, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter users stand out as having the highest rates of engagement.
Fully 63% of Facebook users report going on the site at least daily (with 40% logging on multiple times per day), giving it not only the highest overall percentage of users, but also the most engaged. Just 14% of Facebook users say that they visit the site less than once a week.
Instagram users visit the site nearly as frequently as Facebook users. More than half of Instagram users (57%) use the app on a daily basis, with 35% doing so several times per day. Twitter users are also frequent visitors to the site. Some 46% use Twitter daily, with 29% checking in several times per day. However, 32% of Twitter users say that they check in less than once per week.
Pinterest and LinkedIn users tend to have more intermittent patterns of usage. Just 23% of Pinterest users and 13% of LinkedIn users visit the sites daily, and around half say they use the sites less than once per week.
Social media matrix
Some 36% of internet users say that they use just one of the five social media sites specified in this report (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn), while 42% use two or more of these sites. The remaining 22% of internet users have not adopted any of the five major platforms we asked about in our survey.
Among those internet users who only use one of these five major social networking platforms, 8% use LinkedIn, 4% use Pinterest, and 2% each say that Instagram or Twitter is their sole social networking site. The remaining 84% say that Facebook is the one social networking site they use.
Facebook is by far the most commonly-used social networking platform, and as a result, a significant majority of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn users also use Facebook. At the low end, 83% of LinkedIn users also use Facebook. At the high end, 93% of Instagram users also use Facebook (Instagram’s parent company). About a quarter of Facebook users use each of the other sites.
Turning to sites other than Facebook, a significant level of overlap exists between Instagram and Twitter users – 53% of Twitter users also use Instagram, and 53% of Instagram users also use Twitter. Among non-Facebook sites, this is the highest rate of “reciprocity” between user groups we measured.
Notes
1 This figure is based on a general social media usage question from a separate survey, conducted July 18-September 30, 2013 among 6,010 adults in the U.S. For more information on general social networking site usage and demographics, see http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/March/Pew-Internet-Social-Networking-full-detail.aspx
