Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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Social Media

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Americans’ Use of Social Media in 2026

Today YouTube and Facebook are the most-widely used online platforms. Explore the demographic patterns and trends shaping the social media landscape.

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Online Community and Connection in America

Nearly four-in-ten U.S. adults are in an online community. These virtual third spaces can take many forms, like Facebook groups, online video games or fandom forums on Reddit.

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    Twitter and status updating

    As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others.

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    Five Years of Free Friendship Online

    The social networking juggernaut Facebook turns five years old today, and the chatter online about the birthday ranges from congratulatory to cautionary.

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    New social media research

    Our colleagues at the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism have developed a New Media Index and are unveiling it today.

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    The Annotated Inauguration

    Yesterday’s inauguration was the first to be fully digitized, annotated and archived online.

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    Adults and Social Network Websites

    The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% at the end of 2008.

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    Fans of Facebook

    About a third of the U.S. public calls social networking sites such as Facebook a change for the better.

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    The New Connectedness

    Our “Networked Families” report contains data about the “new connectedness” or what Twitterers call “ambient intimacy.”

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    The Internet as Social Ally

    Do people consider the internet itself a kind of social ally? Not directly, but they often treat the internet as they would a helpful friend.

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    The Future of the Internet III

    A survey of experts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, and the structure of the Internet itself improves. They disagree about whether this will lead to more soci…

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