Facebook is huge. Depending on the day, it is the most visited site in the US (an accomplishment that Facebook recently achieved for the first time during Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years’ Day at the end of 2009). Yet despite all the Facebook success and its integration into mainstream culture, there are still some misunderstandings about the people that use facebook.
Just yesterday I was having a conversation with someone about Facebook in which a comment was made that “kids and younger people are the ones that really use Facebook”. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this perspective come up in conversation. When it does, I do my best to dispel the myth with the most recent demographics statistics and trends. Often times I’m asked to share that information afterwards. So, I’m writing this post to help avoid the need to explain myself over and over again, and instead direct people here. With that all out of the way, here is the most recent data (as of 1/1/10) on Facebook that you can use to enlighten yourself and others on just who uses Facebook and where they come from.
1) Facebook.com average user figures:
- Average user has 130 friends on the site
- Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
- Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
- Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
- Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
- Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
- Average user is invited to 3 events per month
- Average user is a member of 12 groups
Source: facebook.com statistics
2) Breakdown by country: Just over 70% of Facebook users come from outside the United States
Sources: checkfacebook.com and facebook.com statistics
3) Breakdown by population saturation: The % of country population that are active on Facebook
Sources: allfacebook.com
4) Breakdown of US users (gender and age):
As the chart above illustrates, the total US Facebook population is made up of millions of people across a range of ages groups. While young adults (18-25) lead the way with a combined ~27 million users, the 26-34 group is close behind with ~21 million users. According to the data above there a combined ~18 million people over the age of 45 active on Facebook. These are impressive user numbers from an older demographic that continue to grow.
Another look at the US users by age:
Sources: allfacebook.com
5) Facebook.com a top destination site for everyone, particularly the 65+ age group
Source: Nielsen 2010 Media Fact Sheet
I’ve aggregated data from several different sources for this post, and as you can see there is considerable participation on Facebook from all age groups. Hopefully you can use this information going forward to dispel the youth myth too.
