Facebook co-founder, chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
A report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that a third of Facebook users ages 18-29 plan to spend less time on the site in 2013.
According to the newest data, 42 percent of Facebook users ages 18-29 said their usage of the site had decreased in the past year, and 38 percent of users ages 18-29 said they plan to spend even less time on Facebook in 2013. Still, the majority of Facebook users of all ages say they plan to spend the same amount of time on the site as they have in the past.
The report follows a telephone survey conducted in mid-December by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project Omnibus Survey, which zeroed in on Americans’ use of the social media site.
More than 1,000 online adults were asked if they used Facebook and if they’ve ever taken a break from the site. The poll found that more than half of current Facebook users have taken a voluntary break from using the social networking site for a period of several weeks or more.
Of the 61 percent that took time off from Facebook, the bulk (21 percent) said they did so because they became too busy. Another 10-percent said they became uninterested and yet another 10-percent said it was a “waste of time.” Other reasons for temporarily abandoning the site ranged from “too much drama” to “Facebook is ‘not real life.’”
Of those surveyed, 20 percent said they had once used Facebook but no longer do, and 8 percent said they do not currently use Facebook but are interested in doing so in the future. Still, the majority of social media users – 92 percent – still maintain active profiles on Facbeook.
Though the recent data shows that most Facebook users have taken temporary vacations from the site, Pew data from November of 2012 shows that 41 percent of adults on social networking sites accessed them multiple times per day, a number up from 33 percent in 2011.
The report also found that women are more likely than men to report an increased importance of social media; women also spend more time on social networking sites than men. The data shows that 59 percent of Facebook users of all ages believe the site is as important to them as it was a year ago.
Roughly 67 percent of adults who use the internet are on Facebook, compared to 20 percent who use Linked In and 17 percent who use Twitter. According to Facebook, 546,120 people over the age of 13 in Rhode Island alone are on Facebook. Today, 69 percent of online adults use some type of social media site, which is more than half of the entire adult population of the U.S.
