This graph illustrates the growth of social networking (from 8% in 2005 to 46% in 2009) with American adults. Here are some other stats from a presentation by Pew’s Amanda Lenhart.

79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 200
46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.

Eds. Note: Facebook now has over 300 million total users (all ages, worldwide) and 65 million accessing the network using a mobile device.

Of Adult SNS Users:

73% have a Facebook account
48% have a MySpace profile
14% have an account on LinkedIn
1% each on Yahoo, YouTube, Tagged, Flickr and Classmates.com
10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com

Also Available: The Slides from Lenhart’s Presentation, “The Democratization of Online Social Networks: A look at the change in demographics of social network users over time.”

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.