Pew Report: Facebook user growth slows in the United States

Most use the social network daily-more so than any other platform, including Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

In a new analysis of social media use, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday that messaging apps and new social networks are gaining popularity most quickly among American adults.

Some 36% of U.S. smartphone owners use messaging apps such as Kik or Apple’s iMessage, a new survey of 1,900 people by the Pew Research Center shows. Roughly half of smartphone users ages 18-30 use a messaging app, and 41% use a message-deleting app.

Because the vast majority of Americans use the internet, the figures suggest 62 per cent of all US adults are on Facebook, according to Pew. Sixty-four percent of people aged 50-64 use it. The only large drop comes from people aged 65 years or older, with 48 percent saying they use the platform. “The data also show how swiftly an already complex terrain of interaction is becoming more varied”.

Social-media stocks have been on a bumpy road lately.

Pinterest more than doubled its user base in the past three years. In terms of user growth, some of these networks – such as Facebook – may be approaching their ceiling. The percentage of US users who said they used each social network grew much more slowly between fall 2014 and spring 2015 than it did between previous years since Pew started asking the question.

According to the report, some 23 percent of all online adults use Twitter, a proportion identical to that in September 2014.

Large portions of every demographic use Facebook, regardless of income, education or location. Fifty-nine percent of its Instagram users visit the site daily.

Turns out that Hillary Clinton is in the minority when she talks about favoring a Snapchat app that automatically deletes messages (she is under the gun over allegedly classified emails on her server), but that may be a factor of age.

The survey is based on telephone interviews conducted in March and April with 1,907 adults, across the country, on landlines and cellphones.