More Adults Now Using Social Networks, Says Report

Yesterday, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project released a new data memo titled Adults and Social Network Websites that looks at how adults use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Among the main findings of the report:

• The share of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years -- from 8 percent in 2005 to 35 percent now, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's December 2008 tracking survey.
• While media coverage and policy attention focus heavily on how children and young adults use social network sites, adults still make up the bulk of the users of these Web sites. Adults make up a larger portion of the U.S. population than teens, which is why the 35 percent number represents a larger number of users than the 65 percent of online teens who also use online social networks.
• Still, younger online adults are much more likely than their older counterparts to use social networks, with 75 percent of adults 18-24 using these networks, compared to just 7 percent of adults 65 and older. At its core, use of online social networks is still a phenomenon of the young.
• Overall, personal use of social networks seems to be more prevalent than professional use of networks, both in the orientation of the networks that adults choose to use as well as the reasons they give for using the applications. Most adults, like teens, are using online social networks to connect with people they already know.
• When users do use social networks for professional and personal reasons, they will often maintain multiple profiles, generally on different sites.
• Most, but not all adult social network users are privacy conscious; 60 percent of adult social network users restrict access to their profiles so that only their friends can see it, and 58 percent of adult social network users restrict access to certain content within their profile.

The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.