Perhaps some discouraging news for Facebook? 38% of Facebook users aged 18-29 say they’ll spend less time on the site over the coming year, per results [pdf] from a survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Overall, 27% of the Facebook users surveyed said they’d spend less time on the site, versus 3% who expect to spend more time, and 69% who will hold steady. Furthermore, 28% said the site has become less important to them over the past year, compared to 12% who said it had become more important.
Some other interesting results from the survey are highlighted below.
- 61% of current Facebook users reported having taken a break from using Facebook at some point for several weeks or more.
- The primary reason for doing so was a lack of time (21%), with 10% each also saying that they weren’t interested and that it was a waste of time.
- 2 in 3 adults surveyed currently use Facebook. Among those not currently using the social network, 20% said they had previously used the site.
- 8% of those not currently using Facebook are interested in doing so in the future.
- 42% of Facebook users aged 18-29 said they spent less time on Facebook on a typical day than they did a year earlier. That’s almost double the percentage (23%) of users aged 50 and older who said the same. Despite those changes, survey results from Ipsos indicate that younger social media users spend almost 60% more time daily social networking than their older counterparts.
About the Data: The results are derived from a phone survey of 1,006 American adults ages 18+ between December 13 and 16, 2012. It was conducted in English on landline and cell phones. The margin of error for the whole sample is +/- 3.6% points; for the results from 860 internet users in the sample +/- 3.9% points; for the results from 525 Facebook users in the sample is +/- 5.0% points.
