Forum Research: Survey shows that 2/3 of Canadians prefer Facebook as their social network

A new survey shows that the number of Canadians using social media appears to be approaching a plateau, but the growth trend of using mobile devices to access social media remains strong. The figures show that two-thirds of the English-speaking Canadians surveyed use social media, with Facebook being the most popular.

The poll was conducted by Forum Research, a polling firm for Media Technology Monitor, among 4,009 English-speaking people by telephone between Oct. 7 and Dec. 1 last year.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they had used social media in the past month; at the same time, about a quarter of respondents said they avoided socializing, and 11% said they did not use the internet.

Among internet users, 71% describe themselves as active social media users, up only 3 percentage points from 2012.

However, the growth rate of the number of people using mobile communication devices to access social networks is very significant.

More than three in five social media users said they had used their smartphones to read or post messages in the past month, a 20 percent jump from the previous year.

About a third of people said they used their tablets to access social networks, an increase of about 50%.

The survey shows that compared with other social media, Facebook still maintained its absolute advantage last year. Canadian Home, IASK. CA

About 93% of social media users surveyed said they use Facebook, compared with 31% who reported using LinkedIn, 27% who used Twitter and 18% who used Pinterest.

Nearly half of social media users said they regularly use just one social network, while a third reported using two, and just 15% said they log on to three different social sites each month.