Techosta Where Tech Starts From
Gen X 20 years ago, in ‘Reality Bites.’When you think of Millennials, you probably think of someone using a smartphone, tapping away as they post a photo to Instagram, add a status update to Facebook, or retweet political memes.
Would it surprise you to find out then that Millennials actually aren’t the heaviest users of social media?
People ages 18-34 spend a hefty six hours and 19 minutes per week on social networks, finds a new report from Nielsen.
But Generation Xers, 37 to 52, spends even more, six hours and 58 minutes. That’s 10 percent more than Millennials.
What’s more, Gen X increased its social media time by 29 percent from third quarter of 2015 to Q3 of 2016, while Millennials only increased by 21 percent. Those over 50 had the biggest gain, at 64 percent.
What it means for social media advertisers
While advertisers have become obsessed with Millennials, they would be wise to remember Gen Xers, too, based on this report, since the heaviest social media users are also the most open to advertising.
“Social media is one of the biggest opportunities that companies across industries have to connect directly to consumers,” notes the report.
“And it turns out that social media users can be pretty receptive—especially heavy users, who spend over 3 hours per day on social media.”
The report also finds that overall, across all media, Millennials consume much less than their older counterparts, at 26 hours and 49 minutes – which really puts the kibosh on the aforementioned image of the Millennial attached to their phone.
Gen X, meanwhile, spends 31 hours and 40 minutes, while those over 50 spend 20 hours and 22 minutes.
So what sites are they visiting? Across all ages, Facebook has by far the most U.S. users on smartphones, 178.8 million, compared to 91.5 million for Instagram. Twitter is third at 82.2 million, followed by Pinterest at 69.6 million.
On desktop, Twitter ranks ahead of Instagram, with Pinterest third and Blogger fourth.
Tags: digital, generation x, millennials, social media, social media popular, social media use, social networking
[“source-ndtv”]