Teenagers beware – your parents are encroaching on your Facebook territory. The latest study from Pew Internet found that 65% of adult Internet users spend time on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace. (MySpace? Pew, are you sure that anyone still uses MySpace?) That’s up from 61% of adult Internet users in 2010, way up from 29% in 2008 and way WAY up from 5% in 2005. Social media demographics are definitely changing as more and more adults get on board with Facebook updates and tweets.
These new numbers mean over 50% of the adult population now uses social media – the first time this has happened in Pew survey history. On a typical day, the only tools that are used more often are email (61%) and search engines (59%).
Power Users
Social media is still most popular with women and the under 30 set. Combine those two together and you get the ultimate social networkers: young adult women ages 18-29. Almost 90% of them use social sites overall, with 69% doing so on an average day.
Social Media Demographics by Gender
Women as a whole are still the leading users of social sites, with 69% of online women using the sites compared with 60% of men. The ladies are also more active, with 48% using social sites on a typical day compared with only 30% of men.
Social Network Demographics by Age
No surprise, 83% of young adults aged 18-29 use social networking sites. However, the other age categories are seeing faster growth rates. The adoption rate has grown 150% among users age 65+, increasing from 13% in 2009 to 33% in 2011. The rate has doubled amoung users aged 50-64, increasing from 25% in 2009 to 51% in 2011.
For a detailed breakdown of the Pew Internet results, check out the chart below.
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