![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/facebook-marriage.jpg\" "\\"marriage")
Do\u00a0social media technologies isolate people and promote false\u00a0relationships? Or are there important benefits associated with being connected to others in this way?<\/p>\nDo\u00a0social media technologies isolate people and promote false\u00a0relationships? Or are there important benefits associated with being connected to others in this way?<\/p>\n
The Pew Research Center\u2019s Internet & American Life Project <\/a>decided to examine these questions\u00a0in a survey that explored people\u2019s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement.<\/p>\n Among the many interesting findings, Pew reports that the social relationship \u201cboost\u201d received by\u00a0Facebook users is equivalent to about half the total support that the average American receives as a result of being married.<\/p>\n I always enjoy reading these reports because Pew is one of the few reliably valid sources of research out there!\u00a0 The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people\u2019s social worlds. Here is a\u00a0summary: <\/strong><\/p>\n The number\u00a0using social networking sites has\u00a0doubled since 2008 and\u00a0has gotten older.<\/strong><\/p>\n In this Pew Internet sample, 79% of American adults said they used the internet and nearly half of adults (47%), or 59% of internet users, say they use at least one site. This is close to double the 26% of adults (34% of Internet users) who used a social site\u00a0in 2008. Among other things, this means the average age of social media\u00a0users has shifted from 33 in 2008 to 38 in 2010. \u00a0Over half of all adult social site users are now over the age of 35.<\/p>\n Facebook dominates the social\u00a0space in this survey: 92% of social\u00a0media users are on Facebook; 29% use MySpace, 18% used LinkedIn and 13% use Twitter.<\/p>\n By percentage, Twitter has experienced the most growth.\u00a0 Nearly 60% of Twitter users, 39% of Facebook users, and 36% of LinkedIn users joined within the past year<\/p>\n There is considerable variance in the way people use various social networking sites.<\/strong><\/p>\n 52% of Facebook users and 33% of Twitter users engage with the platform daily, while only 7% of MySpace and 6% of LinkedIn users do the same.<\/p>\n On Facebook on an average day:<\/p>\n <\/strong>Twitter is for girls, LinkedIn is for boys?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook users are more trusting than others.<\/strong><\/p>\n Pew\u00a0asked people if they felt \u201cthat most people can be trusted.\u201d They\u00a0found that the typical Internet user is more than twice as likely as others to feel that people can be trusted. Further, they found that Facebook users are even more likely to be trusting. They\u00a0found that a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other Internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.<\/p>\n Facebook users have more close relationships.<\/strong><\/p>\n The average American has just over two\u00a0close Facebook confidants (2.16) \u2013 that is, people with whom they discuss important matters. This is a modest, but significantly larger number than the average of 1.93 core ties reported\u00a0in 2008. They\u00a0found that someone who uses Facebook several times per day averages 9% more close, core ties in their overall social network compared with other Internet users.<\/p>\n Follow the money <\/strong><\/p>\n Pew looked at how much total support, emotional support, companionship, and instrumental aid adults receive. On a scale of 100, the average American scored 75\/100 on a scale of total support, 75\/100 on emotional support (such as receiving advice), 76\/100 in companionship (such as having people to spend time with), and 75\/100 in instrumental aid (such as having someone to help if they are sick in bed).<\/p>\n Internet users in general score 3 points higher in total support, 6 points higher in companionship, and 4 points higher in instrumental support. A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day tends to score an additional 5 points higher <\/strong>in total support, 5 points higher in emotional support, and 5 points higher in companionship, than internet users of similar demographic characteristics. For Facebook users, the additional boost is equivalent to about half the total support that the average American receives as a result of being married or cohabitating with a partner.<\/strong><\/p>\n Social media\u00a0users are much more politically engaged than most people.<\/strong><\/p>\n The survey was conducted over the November 2010 elections. At that time, 10% of Americans reported that they had attended a political rally, 23% reported that they had tried to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate, and 66% reported that they had or intended to vote. Internet users in general were over twice as likely to attend a political meeting, 78% more likely to try and influence someone\u2019s vote, and 53% more likely to have voted or intended to vote.<\/p>\n Compared with other Internet users, and users of other social\u00a0platforms, a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day was an additional two and half times more likely to attend a political rally<\/strong>, 57% more likely to persuade someone on their vote, and an additional 43% more likely to have said they would vote. Participants in LinkedIn were the most\u00a0politically active.<\/p>\n The report contains a wealth of detailed information but I hope this summary has been helpful. Any surprises?<\/p>\n Mark Schaefer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do\u00a0social media technologies isolate people and promote false\u00a0relationships? Or are there important benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center\u2019s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine these questions\u00a0in a survey that explored people\u2019s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,435],"tags":[1339,355,393,1341,1340,245,169,1342,103],"class_list":["post-3186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-markschaefer","tag-boost","tag-emotional","tag-facebook","tag-isolation","tag-marriage","tag-social","tag-support","tag-tolerance","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pew-sm-survey-sex1.jpg\" "\\"pew")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.businessesgrow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/pew-money.jpg\" "\\"pew")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nFacebook users get more social support than other people.<\/strong><\/h2>\n