Digital Media Usage Across the Life Course by Paul G. Nixon Rajash Rawal Andreas Funk

Author:Paul G. Nixon, Rajash Rawal, Andreas Funk [Paul G. Nixon, Rajash Rawal, Andreas Funk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781317150756
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

7 Living social

Comparing social media use in your 20s and 30s

Natalie Pennington

There are many different reasons to use information communication technologies (ICTs), with the most common being to foster connections and relationships between users (Haythornthwaite, 2005). Those relationships vary from strong to weak tie connections, but one element unique to ICTs is the ability to maintain more weak ties than ever before, and with growing ease (Haythornthwaite, 2005). Additionally, we know that through the use of ICTs weak ties can be turned into strong ties over time (Baym, 2000). This ability to use technology to allow for the development of interpersonal relationships and communication, while once thought to be impossible, is now one of the most common ways to engage online (Baym, 2010; Jones et al., 2009). One of the most commonly used forms of ICTs today for interpersonal communication, particularly by younger adults, is a social networking site.

While social media existed prior to 2004 (MySpace, Friendster, anyone?), many mark the introduction of Facebook that year and its meteoric rise to be the pre-eminent social networking site as proof of the prevalence of social networking sites in the lives of many today. Now just over 10 years old, what started as a college-access-only site has become one of the most-trafficked websites on the Internet, ranking number two in the world and holding steady for the past few years (Fitzgerald, 2012). Indeed, Facebook now boasts more than 1.35 billion monthly active users (Facebook Newsroom, 2015). These numbers make it not all that surprising that users of the site have expanded beyond those who first adopted it (college and high school students).

According to the latest study from the PEW Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, 71 per cent of the adults that are online are using Facebook (Duggan et al., 2015). While comparative results of their data from 2013 to 2014 showed a continued small climb in use by 18- to 29-year-olds (87 per cent from 84 per cent), they also found a decrease in use of the site for users 30 to 49 (down to 73 per cent from 79 per cent). This was the only age group to see a decline in use in the last year, with those in the 65+ age group category seeing the biggest gain, jumping from a 45 per cent to 56 per cent penetration rate (Duggan et al., 2015). PEW also reports a continued increase in the use of various other social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn since 2013, with the most noticeable leaps forward in Instagram for almost every demographic and LinkedIn for college students (Duggan et al., 2015). Knowing who is using these site(s) is only the start of the battle for researchers, however, as the next important question becomes: how are these sites being used?

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the various ways in which users in their 20s and 30s engage with and through social media by summarizing current research on the question while

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