Report: 65% of Adults Now Use Social Media (From 7% in 2005)

In a bit of news from the shouldn't-surprise-anyone department, a lot of people use social media. (That's kind of why it has that name—social media.)

What might come as more of a surprise is just how many people use social media and who, exactly, they are. To that, the Pew Research Center analyzed 27 different national surveys it has conducted between 2005 and 2015 (excluding 2007, for whatever reason). In doing so, the organization found that just around 65 percent or so of all adults use social media right now. And that number has jumped from a very, very meager seven percent back in 2005.

"The figures reported here are for social media usage among all adults, not just among those Americans who are internet users. In many previous Pew Research reports, the share of social media users has been reported as the proportion of internet users who had adopted such sites, rather than the full adult population, which continues to include a relatively small share (currently 15%) who still remain offline. In this report, a broader picture of the American landscape is presented, and so the figures are based on the entire adult population," reads the Pew Research Center's report.

As you might expect, more young people (18-29) use social media than old people. However, Pew Research Center's analysis found that those over the age of 65 are catching up to social media rather quickly. In 2010, a mere 11 percent of the 65+ crowd indicated they used social media of any kind. Now, that figure has more than tripled to 35 percent—though it'll likely never catch up to the 90 percent of those aged 18-29 who say they use social media.

There aren't really great gender differences nowadays between those who indicate they use social media—68% of women and 62% of men. There's a bigger correlation between education and social media use, which has been the case since 2005:

"Currently adoption rates for social media stand at 76% for those with college or graduate degrees, 70% of those with some college education and 54% for those who have a high school diploma or less," reads the report.

Looking at geography, suburban and urban residents are slightly more likely to use social media than rural residents—though more than half of rural residents now indicate they use social media. A bit more striking are the differences in reported household incomes and social media use. Higher-income households ($75K annual income or more) are more likely to use social media than the lowest-income households (less than $30K annually) by 78% to 56%.