Women and young people are the most active users of social media today, and women in their 30s make up more than half of heavy contributors — that is, they engage in six or more social media activities.
That’s according to a report by Netpop Research, a San Francisco-based research firm studying Internet trends. The report, “Social Animals: Who’s Sharing What and Why Online?”, is based on results of an online survey last month of 1,253 American broadband users ages 13 and older.
Overall, 73 percent of Internet users contribute to online content using a variety of social media, the survey found. “It’s becoming a form of seamless integration with users’ lives; it’s always with them,” says Cate Reigner, vice president of Brand Insights and co-founder of Netpop Research.
“I have Facebook up almost 24 hours a day,” says Suz Redfearn, a 44-year-old freelance writer and mother of two in Falls Church, Va. She posts on Facebook about 60 times a day and uses her page as a way to stay in touch with the birth families of her two adopted children.
“I work at home, so Facebook sort of functions as my water cooler,” she says. “It makes freelancing less lonely.”
Microblogging has grown 400 percent since 2009. Sites such as Twitter and Tumblr allow users to upload small bits of content, such as short sentences, photos and video links, and post them on a personal page.
“It’s an incredible community organizing tool,” says Marcus Messner, a social media, multimedia journalism and global communications professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Many of these (Middle East) protests would have been much more difficult to organize without social media.”
He cites the use of Twitter by passengers during the emergency landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River and by participants in the Iranian election protest in 2009 as…