71% surveyed are active Facebook users.
By Dileep Thekkethil
A report published by Pew Research Friday revealed that Facebook remains the most popular social network site in the United States even though its growth has slowed.
The report, “Social Media Update 2014,” shows a definite trend in favour of social networks other than Facebook as websites like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn saw significant increases in their user bases.
Despite its slow growth rate, Facebook has the highest number of active users engaging with its platform, says Pew report.
The research data is based on the usage of 81% of American adults who use the internet. Out of 81% internet users, 71% are active users of Facebook. Another interesting finding is 56% of internet users in the country aged 65 or above use Facebook.
The study found that 70% of Facebook users visited their profile at least once a day and more than 45% visited it several times during the day. Another data published by Pew last year revealed that only 63% of Facebook users visited their profile every day in 2013.
The report says that almost half the total number of Instagram users and 17% of Pinterest users engage with their profile on a daily basis. Compared to the results of 2013, websites other than Facebook have not significantly improved their number of active users. Twitter was the worst affected, as it registered a loss of 10% of active daily users compared to last year.
Pew also found that more than half of the total internet users in the United States use more than one social networking site and a significant number of these users are adults. But 79% of internet users who use just one social media site preferred to have their account in Facebook. Interestingly, a majority of LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest users also had their Facebook account.
The Pew report is based on the findings collected in a survey conducted by the University of Michigan under the supervision of Dr. Nicole Ellison and Dr. Cliff Lampe from the university’s School of Information. The survey was conducted in September 2014.