Demographics of Social Media

It is weird to think that when I was going up we had a dial up internet. It is also weird to think that social networking was not big until I was in my sophomore year of high school. I recently read some Pew articles; “Pew Internet: Social Media” and “Older Adults and Internet Use”. These two articles where about the different statistics of the social media and who is using not only the internet but also social media sites.

The statistics in the “Pew Internet: Social Media” article reported that ore women use social media than men do. This was not too surprising based on what we know about men and women; women are more likely to share their thoughts than men are. The article went on to say that ages 18-49 are the majority of social media users. This also did not really surprise me based on the fact that Facebook, one of the main social media sites, was created for college kids. What surprised me was the breakdown of the social media. According to the article Hispanics are the majority of social media users with 72%, followed by Black, non-Hispanics with 68% and White, non-Hispanics with 64%. I guess I really did not break down social media to a race factor so I thought that fact was interesting to read.

The breakdown facts of the social media were also interesting to me. When it came down to the type of social media the results looked like this; Linkedin the average age is 40 years old and older. 63% of men use Linkedin while 37% or women use Linkedin. The facts about Linked in got me thinking as to why men would use Linkedin over women. Could it be that men are used to being the support systems and are looking for jobs constantly? I am not too sure about that fact. The Myspace data also surprised me. The fact that people still use Myspace was a shocking fact, but also that people younger than 32 years old with fewer years of formal education was also very shocking. When Myspace first came out and got popular, I was in high school, and I was against it. Myspace became a way of promoting music and I am guessing is still used for music instead of keeping in touch. Finally the statics for what I consider the most popular social media sites Twitter and Facebook. The average user for Facebook was 38 years old. I found this shocking because I assumed that young kids and college students used Facebook to stay in touch with each other. The average age for Twitter was 33years old. Again, I assumed that younger kids and college kids used Twitter to find out the news and pay attention to the celebrity gossip.

The Pew article titled “Older adults and Internet Use” talks about people 65years and older using the new technology such as cellphones, laptops, emails, and the internet. This article was an interesting read. It did not surprise me that 69% of seniors own a cellphone. My grandparents do not like technology, they do not even own air conditioner, but they do own a cellphone. My grandparents do not use this cell phone unless there is an emergency or the power goes out but they do own one. So the fact that seniors own cellphones did not really surprise me too much. What did surprise me was 32% own laptops, and 48% use desktops. I know my grandfather down have a laptop, but he needed one for his work. A laptop for him was cheaper and easier to put away then a desktop. What also surprised me was the 86% of people 65 years and older use email. From my experience with my grandparents, if I went away to school I would receive snail mail from them. My grandparents are old fashioned like that, which I might add I love! To think that other people’s grandparents email them surprised me! The final surprise was that one in three senior’s use social networking. I feel social networking is a younger people tool. I think I would laugh really hard if one day my Gram Facebooked me.

Social media is growing every day. There is always a new type of social media popping up. I think it is very interesting to see the age groups of social media. it is also weird to me that my parents have Facebook. I know my sister will never accept our parents as friends on Facebook based on the fact that she does not want them meddling in her life. I did not really care about my parents being on Facebook until my mother started talking to my friends. To me I think parents should have their own friends and not comment on their children’s friends but that is personal opinion. To finally end this post I will say, these two Pew articles taught me that there are many different demographics when it comes to social media. Knowing different demographics use different social media sites is a helpful tool for businesses and advertisers. This two articles help me understand that.