Report: People Are Steadily Unplugging From Social Media Apps Like Facebook, Twitter
You wouldn't know it by the way people with smartphones tend to ignore their physical surroundings in favor of whatever is on their digital screens, but use of social media apps is down. That's according to market research firm SimilarWeb, which compared data on Android apps over a yearlong period.
What the study found was that in almost all countries, Android users are spending less time on all four major social media apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. In some territories, the drop was significant. That was the case for Twitter usage in France, which dropped from an average of 19.8 minutes per day in the first quarter of 2015 to 13.12 minutes in the first quarter of 2016. That's a 34 percent decline.
Overall usage and the rate of decline varied by country, but interestingly there were very cases where the study found that users had spent more time on average in a social media app than they did a year prior. Here's a look at Facebook usage:
Source: SimilarWeb
According to the study, usage in Germany stayed the same and only Spain saw an uptick in time spent in Facebook's app. In every other country, including the U.S., users spent less time on average using Facebook's app than they did a year ago.
In each of the other social media apps, usage declined across the board regardless of country. We wouldn't have guessed that to be the case. It's particularly interesting to look at social media app usage in the U.S.. Despite being one of the most active locations, users spent less time on average in each of the four social media apps looked at.
In each of the other social media apps, usage declined across the board regardless of country. We wouldn't have guessed that to be the case. It's particularly interesting to look at social media app usage in the U.S.. Despite being one of the most active locations, users spent less time on average in each of the four social media apps looked at.
