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(Phys.org)The Pew Research Center, a "fact tank" on attitudes and trends that they identify, has issued a report from its Internet & American Life Project that slices and dices data on who uses social media. The portrait includes percentage shares according to ethnicity, age, and sex. "The Demographics of Social Media Users2012" is a report that takes its data from a national survey conducted between November and December last year, in English and Spanish. Some of the findings are no surprise to those who generally follow social networking trends.

They reflect what has been observed outside Pew in ubiquitous everyday instances of Internet use. Young adults, for example, are more likely than older adults to use social media, said Pew, a statement that is unlikely to draw gasps from media analysts. Internet users under 50 are particularly likely to use a social networking site of any kind, according to the report, and those ages 18 to 29 are the most likely of any demographic cohort to do so (83%).

Men are less likely than women to be on the sites, and users in rural settings are less likely than urban-based users to use social networking.

Another unastounding finding is that Facebook remains the most-used social networking platform. Two-thirds of online adults say they use Facebookwomen more than men.

As for Twitter, the percentage of Internet users on Twitter doubled since November 2010, now at 16%.

The study does get interesting in looking at sites beyond Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest, described as an online pinboard, which launched as a closed beta in March 2010, attracted 15% of Internet users to its engaging virtual scrapbooking, in the survey. Pinterest is equally popular among users ages18 to 29 and 30 to 49. Women are about five times as likely to be on the site as men, the largest difference in gender of any site that was featured in this report.

Survey findings for Instagram, a site that also launched in 2010, indicated that African-Americans and Latinos find Instagram especially appealing.

Looking at Tumblr, the Pew survey found that it was significantly less popular among Internet users than the other social networking sites featured in the report. However, while just 6% of those online use the site, the Pew survey takers discovered that Tumblir is much more popular among the youngest cohort, with 13 percent of those ages 18 to 29 blogging on Tumblr.

The sites, in terms of percent of users online, are as follows, as of December 2012: 15% of online adults said they use Pinterest; 13% of online adults said they use Instagram; 6% of online adults say they use Tumblr; 67% of online adults said they use Facebook; and 16% of online adults said they use Twitter.

More information: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-media-users.aspx

Original post:
Pew's fact tank studies American social networking

A curious, but predictable thing is happening with social networking. It looks like it may be disappearing, but at the same time social engagement is appearing all around us.

We have Facebook to thank for social networking, and businesses owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Theyve taught a billion people and brands how to interact and engage online in ways never before possible. Companies have started to learn that the tools and techniques of social technology, brought about by Facebook, smartphones and many other related innovations are enabling major changes in human behavior.

These tools have always been about how we connect, communicate, collaborate and shape our communities. And while the lessons of social networking have been valuable, it looks like its students are ready to move on.

A Pew Internet & American Life studyfrom Dec. 2012 on Facebook user engagement levels highlights a stark finding: a stunning 34% of current Facebook users say the time that they spent on the site has decreased over the past year. By comparison, only 13% of current users say that their time on the site has increased. Looking forward, only 3% say they will spend more time on the site in the coming year whereas 27% say they will spend less time.

Social networking has a user engagement problem; however, users dont have a social technology problem.

Despite the Facebook data, over 121 billion minutes of time was spent on all social media in July 2012, according to NM Incite; thats over one million man-years of timein one month. In total, thats 38% more time than the previous year in online social engagement, activities that now consume more time than any other online activity.

We want to use social technologywe just want to do other things with it. We want to get more things done with it.

The electronics company LG wants you to use social technology to connect with your home appliances, the electric grid, service technicians, and potentially the entire supply chain.The LG Smart ThinQ technology embedded in say, a washing machine, allows it to be monitored through a TV or smartphone. With a refrigerator, users can also now see from their smartphone whats inside and when it will expire. While this may seem basic, extend this connectivity deeper into the supply chain and envision a connection through which your local grocery store replenishes supplies automatically through roving grocery trucks. The efficiency gains and opportunities for new levels of social engagement and disruption to the status quo are dramatic.

Toyota and Coca Cola are also embedding social technology into their products and services in recognition of these changes in human behavior and also to change the experience that they offer to their markets. As new man-machine-man interfaces emerge, the context of social interaction rises dramatically. This is pulling peoples time away from social networking with friends and family, and embedding it into the business of day-to-day life and day-to-day business.

Personal social networking was a great first step, but thats what it was. The next generation of social will change how we collaborate and shape our communities by bringing deep context through man-machine-man interactions.

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You’ve already stopped Facebooking. Next, you’ll be friending your washing machine

February 14, 2013

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Those survey crazy folks over at the Pew Internet and American Life Project are at it again, this time giving us some hard numbers on the current state of social networking in America. It might not surprise you to learn young women in urban areas are more likely to use some sort of social networking; be it Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr or Twitter. According to the new survey, the main factor in determining who is on these sites is age. Those Internet-using Americans under age 50 are very likely to use some sort of social networking, especially those between the ages of 18 and 29. In fact, 83 percent of this younger group is using some sort of social network, according to this new study. Urban-dwellers are obviously more likely to use social networking, as theyre likely to have better connections to the Internet than those in rural areas. Women were also found to be overall more likely to share with one another on these sites.

The Pew Group dissected these social networks, giving a detailed list of what kind of person uses which site. For instance, according to their surveys, (1,802 phone interviews in English and Spanish of adults aged 18 and over between November 14, 2012 and December 9, 2012) 67 percent of Facebook users are 18-29 year old women. Young African-Americans living in urban areas are more likely to use Twitter; young white women under 50 with some college education were in the majority on Pinterest; young African-American and Latino women in urban areas preferred to use Instagram.

Tumblr had the most consistent and neutral user base of all social networks surveyed, as the majority of these users are simply adults between the ages of 18 and 29. Throughout their surveys, the Pew Internet Group found social networks are primarily populated with young people, between the ages of 18 and 29. Every other distinguishing demographic, such as education, income, location and race, were pretty evenly distributed amongst all social networks. For instance, 83 percent of adults between 18 and 29 and 77 percent of adults aged 30 to 49 used social networking. Once these adults hit 50, however, their use of these networks drops to 52 percent, the most significant drop in any other category. The next greatest deciding factors in whether a person uses social networking are gender and location with a nine percent split. As far as location is concerned, 70 percent of adults living in urban areas are on a social network, while only 61 percent of those living in rural areas use these networks.

The survey also found Twitter users have doubled since 2010. These days, 16 percent of all Internet users Tweet links, pictures and musings to their friends and followers. Pinterest remains dominated by young, white, educated females between the ages of 18 and 29. In fact, 25 percent of all female Internet users have a presence on Pinterest, compared to only five percent of all male Internet users. 18 percent of these users are white, while 20 percent have completed college and 23 percent of them bring home $50,000 to $74,999 (USD) a year. As for Facebook, the social network we all want to quit, women are also in the majority, making up 72 percent of all Internet users. Just as it is everywhere else in the survey, these users are younger. Interestingly, the Pew group did not specify which ethnicity was more likely to use Facebook.

Overall, its a young womans world out there in social network land, though its left to be seen if those in the 30 to 49 range will grow with these social networks, or leave them as a younger crowds game.

Source: Michael Harper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

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Social Networking Is A Young Woman’s Game

Social-networking sites continue to hold the attention of most Internet users, especially women between 18 and 29 years old, according to a new Pew Research Center study.

About 67 percent of Internet users take advantage of Facebook, particularly those 20-something women, Pew found in a study that examined the demographics of the most popular social networks.

Twitter tends to attract African-American, urban residents ages 18 to 29, for example, while Pinterest is more often used by white women under age 50 with some college education.

Unsurprisingly, Instagram is popular with urban residents, as well as African Americans, Latinos, and women between the ages of 18 and 29.

Pew attributed the popularity of social-networking sites to the simple fact that Internet users under age 50 are likely to use social media of any kind. Still, the majority of users fall into the 18- to 29-year-old urban female category. But while sex and age play a large part in determining the demographics of the Internet, Pew found little distinction between education and household income.

Once broken down by individual network, though, the numbers begin to look a little different. Twitter has 16 percent of the social media market, with 20 percent of its users living in urban areas and 26 percent identifying as African American.

Pinterest, on the other hand, depends heavily on a very white upper-class society of women ages 18 to 49. Still in its infancy compared to its social-networking siblings, Pinterest attracts only 5 percent of men, 18 percent blacks and Hispanics, 11 percent of those with less than a high school education, and 25 percent of people bringing in $50,000 or less per year a combined number that barely surpasses the 23 percent of those earning $50,000-$75,000 who use the service.

Even Tumblr, with only about 6 percent of the total social media interest, has an intense fanbase of young bloggers, ages 18 to 28 (13 percent). The site is split evenly between male and female use, and has little variation between education and location, though the majority of users tend to make less than $30,000 or more than $75,000.

The Pew Research Center conducted its survey between Nov. 14 and Dec. 9 among 1,802 respondents.

No matter which demographics garner the most interest in each social network, the entire genre is performing well these days. Get a closer look with the 365 Days of Social Media infographic.

More here:
Study Breaks Down Social Network Demographics

Facebook (Getty Images)

With over one billion users worldwide, you'd think that Facebook pretty much has a lock on social networking online.

It's true that the Palo Alto, California-based tech giant is still our go-to place to connect with friends and family online. Facebook isn't going away anytime soon.

That being said, there's more than a few people out there that think Facebook's not working so well.

Criticism of Facebook has grown considerably over the past year, with complaints ranging from the site being much more interested in investors than a great user experience, or that user privacy is becoming decidedly (and unnervingly) less important to Facebook's management team.

But what's the most troubling complaint? Facebook isn't cool anymore.

In response to these claims, there's some tech entrepreneurs that have decided to use the one element that made Facebook so valuable in its early days at Harvard University exclusivity and apply it to their own start-up businesses.

These businesses are so-called niche social networks. They're sites that take a person's need to connect with others online and cater directly to a very specific interest, community or lifestyle.

Of course, there's plenty of reasons to get excited about the possibilities of these sites, once you consider the major ways in which they differ from Facebook.

They're often more sensitive to a specific part of the world

Read more:
Four reasons to go beyond Facebook for social networking