Study gives insight into how many Americans really use Facebook – and how they use it

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2018 and 2019 has shed some interesting light on Americans and their usage of Facebook

While some of the results – such as how teens are abandoning Facebook in favor of YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat – simply confirm what most of us in the digital and communications landscape already suspected, there are some valuable nuggets for businesses trying to reach audiences in the survey.

Here are a few highlights:

• Around seven-in-ten U.S. adults (69%) use Facebook.
• With the exception of YouTube – the video-sharing platform used by 73% of adults – no other major social media platform comes close to Facebook in terms of usage.
• Among U.S. adults who use Facebook, around three-quarters (74%) visit the site at least once a day.
• Facebook is used by around half of America’s teens, but it no longer dominates the teen social media landscape as it once did. The top sites among today’s teens include YouTube (85%), Instagram (72%) and Snapchat (69%).
• Lower-income teens are more likely than higher-income teens to use Facebook.
• Around four out of 10 U.S. adults (43%) get news from Facebook.
• The share of U.S. adults who get news through Facebook is much higher than the shares who get news through YouTube (21%), Twitter (12%), Instagram (8%), LinkedIn (6%) and other platforms.
• Around three-quarters of Facebook users were not aware that the site lists their traits and interests for advertisers. And a lot of them are not happy about it.

Read the full story at PewResearch.org