How People Use Facebook

Last week Pew Internet & American Life Project, a project of the Pew Research Center, launched a detailed report on how social networking affects our lives. Among the things it detailed is just who is using Facebook and how they use it.

First of all, the most active Facebook users tend to be women. 19% of women update their status at least once a day, while only about 11% of men provide daily status updates.

Breakdown of Friend Relationships
The report also found some interesting info about friend relationships.

• 22% people from high school
• 12% extended family
• 10% coworkers
• 9% college friends
• 8% immediate family
• 7% people from voluntary groups
• 2% neighbors

Some of the most interesting stats that prove social networks are more than just online relationships are:

• Only 3% of users’ Facebook friends have never met in person. While 89% of all Facebook friends have met in person more than once.
• Internet Users are more trusting of others than non-Internet users. Facebook users are over 3 times more likely than non-internet users to agree that “most people can be trusted.”

 Comments And Likes
According to the report, Facebook users are not only active in posting, but in interacting as well. For instance:

• 22% of users comment on another’s post or status
• 26% of users “like” another user’s content
• 15% of users update their own status
• 20% of users comment on another user’s photos

In addition to commenting and updating statuses, Facebook users do “like” quite a bit of content.

• 44% of users in the 18-22 age range “like” content on a daily basis.
• Men are less likely to “like” Facebook content than women.  20% of women “like” content several times a day compared to just 9% of men.

That said, private messages are not frequently used. Only 38% of users claim to use Facebook’s private messages at once a week or more.

Facebook is truly a community, but you respond to your friends in your community differently than in real life, as the report shows. With that in mind, remember to be mindful of what you're posting and how you treat your online friends. They deserve the same respect as if they were in the room with you.

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