Report Indicates Facebook’s Status As The Dominant Social Network

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, Facebook remains the dominant social network for U.S. Internet users, whereas Twitter has failed to keep up with rivals such as Instagram and Pinterest.

The data indicates that 72 percent of Americans who are online use Facebook, which shows a small increase of one percentage point from one year ago and is five points higher than in 2012. Due to the fact that the vast majority of Americans use the Internet, the figures suggest that 62 percent of all U.S. adults are on Facebook, according to Pew.

The Pew report is based on telephone interviews conducted between March 17 and April 12 among a national sample of 1,907 adults, including 1,612 Internet users.

The study results show that Pinterest was used by 31 percent of those who were surveyed, while Facebook-owned photo-sharing network Instagram was used by 28 percent of respondents, with both platforms showing significant growth from the previous year. For Twitter, its share remained at 23 percent, which is the same level as last year, although it has increased since being at 16 percent in 2012.

According to the survey, Facebook has an advantage over the others because its users are “highly engaged,” with data showing that 70 percent of Facebook users say that they log on daily, while 43 percent do so multiple times per day. This is in comparison with daily engagement rates of 59 percent for Instagram users, 38 percent for Twitter users and 27 percent for Pinterest users.

LinkedIn experienced a decline in its user base, to 25 percent of online adults from 28 percent in 2014. However, those who use the platform daily increased to 22 percent from 13 percent one year earlier.

Approximately 10 percent of online adults indicated that they use Tumblr, the blogging platform that Yahoo acquired a couple of years ago. This is in comparison to 6 percent in a December 2012 Pew study. The research center found that Tumblr is most popular among younger adults, with 20 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 reporting that they use the platform.

Pew’s survey mirrored the global picture for the major social networks. Last month, Facebook said that its monthly active user base grew to 1.49 billion, while Twitter’s user base increased only marginally to 316 million. Pew’s report shows that Facebook is particularly popular among women, with 77 percent of those who are online indicating that they use the social network.

Another interesting finding in Pew’s report is that there is considerable interest in messaging applications that allow smartphone users to bypass carrier networks. Approximately 36 percent of smartphone users who were surveyed indicated that they’ve used messaging apps such as WhatsApp, iMessage or Kik. These apps are particularly popular among young adults, with the survey results indicating that they were used by 49 percent of smartphone owners between the ages of 18 and 29.

“The emergence of messaging apps is noteworthy as these communication tools serve different social needs than traditional online social networks,” said Maeve Duggan, a researcher at Pew and the lead author of the report. “The data also shows how swiftly an already complex terrain of interaction is becoming more varied.”