Canadians’ social media use plateauing, mobile usage surging: Poll

TORONTO – While the number of Canadians using social media appears to be edging up gradually toward a possible plateau, mobile growth is strong, according to a new report.

Almost two-thirds of the 4,009 anglophone Canadians polled by telephone late last year for the Media Technology Monitor said they had used social media in the past month, while about one in four said they avoided social networking, and 11 per cent said they did not use the Internet.

Of the Internet users, 71 per cent said they were active social media users, which was up just three percentage points from 2012.

But there was significant growth in the number of respondents using a mobile device to access social networks.

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Just over three in five social media users said they used a smartphone to read or post in the past month, up by 20 per cent from the previous year.

And about one in three said they used a tablet to log on to their social networks, which was up by about 50 per cent.

Facebook maintained its huge lead over its social media rivals in the past year, according to the survey.

About 93 per cent of the social media users polled said they were on Facebook, compared to 31 per cent for LinkedIn, 27 per cent for Twitter, and 18 per cent for Pinterest.

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Almost half of the social media users said they only use one social network regularly, while one in three said they use two. Just 15 per cent said they logged onto three different social networks every month.

The poll was conducted by Forum Research between Oct. 7 and Dec. 1, 2013 and the results are considered accurate within 1.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.