The survey says! Most people are cutting back on Facebook

Have you cut the time you spend on Facebook from a daily occurrence to once a week or maybe a couple of times a month? According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project 3 out of 5 of your friends have done the same thing. Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted a survey for the Pew project and found that out of the 1,006 people that responded over 600 (61%) have reduced the time they spend on the social networking site.

It is not surprising that the age group leading the way is the 18-29 crowd with just almost a forth (42%) say they plan to reduce their time over the next year. Since that is the people starting or finishing up their schooling and getting ready to plunge into the working class it only makes sense that they would be reducing the time they would usually spend playing words with friends, gossiping or sharing photos. That percentage went down for each consecutive age group and was at its lowest with the over 50 crowd at only 20% saying they would decrease their time on Facebook.

According to the study more than twice as many women (16%) than men (7%) find that Facebook has become more important and increased the amount of time they spend on the social site. There isn't one specific reason for this difference between the genders. It could be that some of the changes Facebook have made over the past year are more appealing to women or that less men answered the survey.

What was probably the most surprising result of the survey is that only 4% state privacy issue as their reason for taking time away from being on the site. This result makes one wonder if privacy just isn't as big off a concern as it once was just a couple of years ago or if most people think that privacy setting are good enough to take care of their needs.

You are probably wondering does this mean that Facebook will be going away? Probably not. It is more likely that it just means more changes are needed. These changes though will need to be more thought out than some of the past changes that have turned some people off of Facebook.

For more on this topic you should try the follow articles:

• http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/02/05/facebook-vacation-pew-survey/1893103/

• http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57567745-93/study-facebook-fatigue-its-real/

• http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/water_cooler/sick-of-facebook-survey-most-americans-take-breaks-from-facebook

• http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9236522/Some_Facebook_users_dialing_back_usage_Pew_survey_says

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