I’m convinced social media is the hot burner than we will continue to touch. Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is without a doubt a real thing especially with our mobile devices always in reach. Now more than ever, we are more than willing to keep checking in on all of our least favorite social media sites that we can not stay away from.
In life, there are rule breakers and paradigm shifts. Social media has proven to be one of them. In every other business model I have ever studied, a company that made a majority of its customers unhappy regularly would die a quick death. With social media, we are clearly willing to take the bad with the good. The Pew Research Center is out with their updated social media study for 2019 usage and here’s the scorecard.
The percentage of adults who use these services:
- YouTube:73%
- Facebook:69%
- Instagram:37%
- Pinterest:28%
- LinkedIn:27%
- Snapchat:24%
- Twitter:22%
- WhatsApp:20%
But here’s the biggest surprise. Of those seven platforms, overall social media use did drop year over year for five of those platforms. That is not a surprise. Can you guess the two that grew? If you guessed Facebook and Instagram, you're correct.
Yes, ironically enough the two maligned Facebook products were the two that actually gained usage. Facebook has gained users again after a dip last year and is back to tying record levels of users. Meanwhile, Instagram continues to grow and is currently at a new record high with overall users. You might hate Facebook, but odds are you are still using it.
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