A new study published by the researchers at Pew reveals that social networking has truly made the world a more interconnected place – particularly among people who have never met.
Based on the findings published by Pew, the typical Facebook user has never actually met at least 7% of their Facebook “friends.” For most users, that means about sixteen of their Facebook friends are practically complete strangers.
Another 3% of our collection of Facebook friends are individuals we’ve met in real life only once.
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 social network. This is close to double the 26% of adults (34% of internet users) who used a social network in 2008.
Pew finds that 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.
On Facebook on an average day:
- 15% of Facebook users update their own status.
- 22% comment on another’s post or status.
- 20% comment on another user’s photos.
- 26% “Like” another user’s content.
- 10% send another user a private message
To read the full report from Pew, click here.
