In the past month, we’ve introduced the Neely Social Media Index and reported our findings for social media experiences that users perceive as bad for the world, and experiences that negatively affect users personally. Yet, we aim to provide a balanced approach and provide insight not just into the costs but also into some of the many benefits of social media. Therefore, in today’s post, we shift our focus to one of the positive experiences that users may have when using social media and online communication services — feeling connected
One important question. Back in June, your original post about the index charted the percentage of survey respondents using each platform (e.g. LinkedIn 17%, Reddit 11.2%, etc.).
So when you report in this post that 17.3% of users report developing a meaningful connection on LinkedIn and 10.1% on Reddit, I assume those percentages are based on the people reporting that they used those platforms versus folks overall.
In other words, ~3% of survey respondents overall reported developing a meaningful connection on LinkedIn (17.3% of 17%) and a little more than 1% on Reddit (10.1% of 11.2%). Do I have that right?
And, yes, you are correct. The initial post was primarily looking at overall population estimates, and most of the follow-up posts have been subsetted by users of the specific platforms. There are some exceptions in other posts, but those are explicitly noted (e.g., when looking at the proportion of users across all platforms that selected a specific impact of a negative experience, or a topic of something they saw that was bad for the world -- but even in those cases, I follow up by looking at how those overall proportions might differ by platform).
Thanks for the comment and question. I've got a few more fun posts nearing completion that I hope you'll enjoy.
Interesting reading. Could you share with us how many subjects answered the questions to get a sense of how representative this population sample was, please? Thanks
The sample consists of 1,966 total respondents and is nationally representative of adults in the United States. The sample sizes differ for each platform, but I do exclude platforms with fewer than 200 respondents to guard against unstable estimates. The range of respondents for platforms with greater than 200 respondents ranges from 219 (Discord) to 1,686 (Email).
Fascinating data! Thanks for this work.
One important question. Back in June, your original post about the index charted the percentage of survey respondents using each platform (e.g. LinkedIn 17%, Reddit 11.2%, etc.).
So when you report in this post that 17.3% of users report developing a meaningful connection on LinkedIn and 10.1% on Reddit, I assume those percentages are based on the people reporting that they used those platforms versus folks overall.
In other words, ~3% of survey respondents overall reported developing a meaningful connection on LinkedIn (17.3% of 17%) and a little more than 1% on Reddit (10.1% of 11.2%). Do I have that right?
Thank you!
And, yes, you are correct. The initial post was primarily looking at overall population estimates, and most of the follow-up posts have been subsetted by users of the specific platforms. There are some exceptions in other posts, but those are explicitly noted (e.g., when looking at the proportion of users across all platforms that selected a specific impact of a negative experience, or a topic of something they saw that was bad for the world -- but even in those cases, I follow up by looking at how those overall proportions might differ by platform).
Thanks for the comment and question. I've got a few more fun posts nearing completion that I hope you'll enjoy.
Interesting reading. Could you share with us how many subjects answered the questions to get a sense of how representative this population sample was, please? Thanks
The sample consists of 1,966 total respondents and is nationally representative of adults in the United States. The sample sizes differ for each platform, but I do exclude platforms with fewer than 200 respondents to guard against unstable estimates. The range of respondents for platforms with greater than 200 respondents ranges from 219 (Discord) to 1,686 (Email).