Facebook Still Top Dog, Thanks To Grandma
By
Jim Donnelly
Facebook is still the No. 1 social network in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center — and you have your grandparents to thank for it.
Pew Social Media Update shows that for the first time ever, more than half of all U.S. online seniors (65 and over) now use Facebook.
Pew says this represents “31% of all seniors,” which, if accurate, means a lot of seniors out there are light years ahead of anyone that age in my own family.
Things aren’t all rosy for Facebook, though. We all know teens hate being anywhere near their families, which could explain why Facebook has seen a recent drop in usage amongst this demographic.
Indeed, the Pew study shows that while Facebook is still the Grand Poobah of social, its uptake from new users has slowed to a crawl (other than the senior demographic).
“Every other social media platform measured saw significant growth in every demographic group,” the report said.
The hottest site for teens and young adults? If you know anyone with a pulse from this age group, then you already know: Instagram, Instagram, and more Instagram.
Posting random pictures of your friends doing random things is super fun after all, which is probably why 53 per cent of those aged 18-29 now use Instagram, with half of those users logging on daily.
Overall, Twitter had the lowest percentage of online adults who identifed themselves as users in the study, at 23 per cent — behind Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram.
Check-in sites (or former check-in sites) like FourSquare were not included in the top five, because really, does anyone even care anymore?
And continuing a trend that’s been evident since the site’s inception, women dominate Pinterest’s user base: 42 per cent of online women use the site, compared to just 13 per cent of men.
Jim Donnelly heads MediaMiser’s Media Research Group, or MRG, which oversees the company’s content marketing efforts including the production of public media analysis reports and infographics.
