Facebook: A Profile of its ‘Friends’
In light of the Facebook IPO, we rounded up highlights of our data on adult Facebook users. What do Facebook users do on the site? How many friends they have? What are their social and civic lives like?
Some fast facts:
- 229: The average number of friends a person has on Facebook
- Women average 21 updates to their Facebook status per month while men average 6
Facebook, on an Average Day:
- 15% of Facebook users update their own status
- 22% comment on another’s post or status
- 20% comment on another user’s photos
- 26% “Like” another user’s content
- 10% send another user a private message
Big infographic for your Monday evening via Mashable - Who uses today’s biggest social networking sites?
We found that as of February 2012, 66% of online adults use social networking sites.
Chart of the week: Who uses social networking sites? (update)
Awesome infographic for your Tuesday morning: Are You In Control of Your Social Media Privacy?
Our recent report on privacy management on social media sites found that social network users are becoming more active in pruning and managing their accounts, and women and younger users tend to unfriend more than others. In addition:
- More than half of social networking site users (58%) say their main profile is set to private so that only friends can see it
- 67% of female profile owners restrict access to friends only compared with 48% of male profile owners
- 11% of SNS users have posted content they regret, and male profile owners are almost twice as likely as female profile owners to profess regret for posting content (15% vs. 8%)
Fast facts: The tone of life on social networking sites
- 85% of adult social networking site users say that their experience on the sites is that people are mostly kind, compared with 5% who say people they observe on the sites are mostly unkind and another 5% who say their answer depends on the situation.
- 68% of SNS users said they had an experience that made them feel good about themselves.
- 61% had experiences that made them feel closer to another person. (Many said they had both experiences.)
- 39% of SNS-using adults say they frequently see acts of generosity by other SNS users and another 36% say they sometimes see others behaving generously and helpfully. By comparison, 18% of SNS-using adults say they see helpful behavior “only once in a while” and 5% say they never see generosity exhibited by others on social networking sites.
- 15% of adult SNS users said they had an experience on the site that ended their friendship with someone. That is somewhat less than the 22% of SNS-using teens who reported having this problem.
- 12% of adult SNS users had an experience that resulted in a face-to-face argument or confrontation with someone. Fully 25% of SNS-using teens said this had happened to them as a result of their using the site.
Chart of the week: Who uses social networking sites?
Read more: The tone of life on social networking sites
Fully 85% of adult social networking site users say that in their experience, people are mostly kind in social networking spaces. At the same time, 49% of SNS-using adults have seen mean behavior on those sites; 26% have had a personal problem like loss of a friend, or getting into a physical fight with someone based on the experience they had on the site. Our new report explores the tone of life on social networking sites; Click here to read more.
A great report out yesterday from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that cable leads the pack as the campaign news source, and Facebook and Twitter play only modest roles. Fewer Americans are closely following news about the presidential campaign than four years ago.
Also of note: 68% say they prefer to get political news from sources that do not have a political point of view, compared with just 23% who prefer news from sources that share their point of view. (via)
Bonus points to Liz Gannes for likening Facebook “power users” to The Giving Tree.
Video for your Friday afternoon: Meet the Facebook POWER USERS.
Most Facebook users get more than they give. Why? "Power users."
We combined server logs of Facebook activity with survey data to explore the structure of Facebook friendship networks and measures of social well-being. These data were then matched with survey responses. We found that over a one-month period:
- 40% of Facebook users in our sample made a friend request, but 63% received at least one request
- Users in our sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times
- Users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12
- 12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo
It turns out there are segments of Facebook “power users” who contribute much more content than the typical user. Read our full report to find out more.
FACEBOOK: Who uses it and what are they doing?
On an average day:
- 15% of Facebook users update their own status.
- 22% comment on another’s post or status.
- 20% comment on another user’s photos.
- 26% “Like” another user’s content.
- 10% send another user a private message
A snapshot of sex/age distribution by social networking site platform:
43% of Facebook users are male and 58% are female.
33% of Facebook users are 23-35
Teens migrating to Twitter — sometimes for privacy
16% of 12-17 year-olds said they used Twitter in our survey last July. Two years earlier, that percentage was just 8 (see http://pewrsr.ch/vWuMHJ).
Would you share your password with someone to show affection?
It used to be pins, then letterman jackets, and jewelry; now, according to The New York Times, it’s passwords.
Our recent report on Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites found that one in three online teens has shared a password with a friend or significant other. You can read the full report here.
