With new data through January 2025, we find that social media use is decreasing, bad experiences are mostly holding steady, and positive experiences are increasing on some platforms
I'm pretty limited in what I am permitted to do with the Neely Center's data, so I think the most straightforward thing is for you and whoever else who wants it would be to print it as a PDF.
Personally, though, I think you're absolutely right—if the goal is to expand readership and impact.
Matt this is super interesting -- do you have a breakdown of this data by age grouping? And were there any discernible differences in shifts in usage and experience -- good and bad -- by different age cohorts?
Thanks, Tanya! We do, though it's tricky when trying to compare platform differences between age groups because:
1) Our sample ranges from ~1600 to ~3000, which is great for population estimates. When we start digging into subgroups, like experiences within a platform, the sample could be as low as 3 (in the case of Mastodon). So, it is impossible to infer much from that on its own (which is why I typically excluded platforms with less than 100 respondents, as that was the cut-off that made sense in terms of statistical power), let alone trying to look at within platform differences. That said, for some of the larger platforms, we would have sufficient power to compare subgroups within those platforms.
2) There is huge variability in the ages of people who use different platforms (e.g., average age of a Facebook user is around 50, whereas the average age of a TikTok user is probably low 20s, but I can't say for sure with our sample because of reason 3).
3) We only sampled adults who were at least 18 years old, which leaves out a huge chunk of users of the more short-form video-focused platforms.
Ha! Thank you! As I said in response to Ian above, I'm pretty limited in what I am permitted to do with the the Neely Center data, so I think the most straightforward thing is for you and whoever else who wants it would be to print it as a PDF.
My man, you need to put this up somewhere in a PDF format and put it behind an email sign up
There are about 74 people that I can think of that I want to send this to
Well done
Thank you!
I'm pretty limited in what I am permitted to do with the Neely Center's data, so I think the most straightforward thing is for you and whoever else who wants it would be to print it as a PDF.
Personally, though, I think you're absolutely right—if the goal is to expand readership and impact.
Matt this is super interesting -- do you have a breakdown of this data by age grouping? And were there any discernible differences in shifts in usage and experience -- good and bad -- by different age cohorts?
Thanks, Tanya! We do, though it's tricky when trying to compare platform differences between age groups because:
1) Our sample ranges from ~1600 to ~3000, which is great for population estimates. When we start digging into subgroups, like experiences within a platform, the sample could be as low as 3 (in the case of Mastodon). So, it is impossible to infer much from that on its own (which is why I typically excluded platforms with less than 100 respondents, as that was the cut-off that made sense in terms of statistical power), let alone trying to look at within platform differences. That said, for some of the larger platforms, we would have sufficient power to compare subgroups within those platforms.
2) There is huge variability in the ages of people who use different platforms (e.g., average age of a Facebook user is around 50, whereas the average age of a TikTok user is probably low 20s, but I can't say for sure with our sample because of reason 3).
3) We only sampled adults who were at least 18 years old, which leaves out a huge chunk of users of the more short-form video-focused platforms.
I have done many more analyses than those shared in the 21 reports I've published on here. Two that include some of the subgroup breakdowns and correlations are on loneliness (https://psychoftech.substack.com/p/social-technology-and-loneliness) and well-being (https://psychoftech.substack.com/p/well-being-across-social-media-platforms). If you have a specific question about age and a particular experience or platform, I can look into the data and share out what I find.
I have another 74 to add to that list :)
Ha! Thank you! As I said in response to Ian above, I'm pretty limited in what I am permitted to do with the the Neely Center data, so I think the most straightforward thing is for you and whoever else who wants it would be to print it as a PDF.
Later on, I will probably write more based on the now-publicly available summaries of the data on my blog (https://mattmotyl.substack.com/) and create some videos for my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCefDXfLhEqr_2orxox2Xkxg).