Pew Survey Results Indicate Facebook’s Continuing Popularity And Increasing Engagement

The Pew Research Center has released the results of its September 2014 survey, which indicates that Facebook continues to be the most popular social media site. Although the results show that its growth has slowed, the survey findings indicate the level of Facebook user engagement has increased.

The Pew results were drawn from a telephone poll in which the research center found that 71 percent of U.S. online adults are users of Facebook, with no other social network reaching 30 percent. Although these results are impressive, the findings show that Facebook’s figure is unchanged from 2013, thereby indicating that gaining additional penetration may be unlikely at this point.

However, Facebook’s user engagement has been rising dramatically, with 70 percent of respondents indicating that they use the site daily. This illustrates an increase of 7 percentage points since 2013. Additionally, 45 percent of Facebook users said that they visit the site several times per day. Another important statistic is that older users are continuing to join the site, with 56 percent of U.S. internet users 65 and older indicating that they use Facebook, up from 45 percent in 2013 and 35 percent in 2012. According to the study, 31 percent of all people in the U.S. who are over 65 years of age are on Facebook.

Although Facebook’s overall U.S. user base didn’t increase, the other major social networks all experienced significant gains, including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. The most rapid growth was by Facebook-owned Instagram, which increased its users by 9 percentage points to 26 percent. Twitter was at 23 percent, up from 18 percent the previous year, with Pinterest and LinkedIn each at a 28 percent share, illustrating an increase of 7 and 6 percentage points respectively.

Another noteworthy result of the study shows there has been a significant increase in the number of people who use multiple social networks, with 52 percent of respondents saying they use two or more, which is up from 42 percent in 2013.

Some of the other key results from the report include:

• Unfortunately for Twitter, daily use of its network dropped 10 percentage points to 36 percent.
• Instagram experienced significant growth across all age demographics, with 53 percent of younger adults (18-29) using the service, which is up from 37 percent in 2013. Additionally, Instagram users are very active, with 49 percent using the site daily, 32 percent using the site several times per day, and 24 percent using the site weekly.
• Pinterest is still much more popular with women than men, with 42 percent of females saying that they’re users, which is up from 33 percent in 2013. Male users are still well behind at 13 percent, which shows a less significant increase of 5 percentage points from the previous year.
• LinkedIn users are going to the site less often overall than in the previous year, with weekly users dropping to 25 percent from 34 percent, and those who visit every few weeks or less increasing to 61 percent from 52 percent in 2013.

It’s important to note that Pew’s survey participants consisted only of American adults, and Twitter is disputing its figures for daily use, having told the Wall Street Journal that, “Pew’s data is so remarkably wrong as to be laughable.” Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, responded by explaining that the discrepancy may be due to the fact that only U.S. adults were included in the study. However, there was no similar discrepancy for the Pew engagement results for Facebook, so it’s unclear whether or not Twitter’s dispute is valid or not.