Deloitte’s fifth annual Media Consumer Survey has been released, confirming social media’s position as a dominant media super-power across all age categories in Australia.
With social media now the number one digital destination for Australians, the report found 84 per cent are engaged with social media networks, 66 per cent interact with social media every day, and 27 per cent check their accounts four or more times a day.
“We spend 21 per cent of our digital entertainment time on social media – creating, reading or commenting on content, uploading photos and videos or writing reviews – with women spending slightly more time (25 per cent of their digital entertainment time) in social domains than men (17 per cent),” says Deloitte consulting digital strategy leader and report co-author Niki Alcorn.
“Ninety-two per cent of survey respondents are on Facebook. But as all age groups converge at this destination, Millennials are heading to newer, more mobile and image-focused networks such as Instagram and Snapchat. Snapchat is almost exclusively being used by Millennials, with usage dropping away significantly over the age of about 30. Disposability of content also plays a role in this shift, the younger generations are enjoying real-time shared moments with the benefit of more private content that doesn’t live on in perpetuity online.”
The past five years have seen Baby Boomers (those aged 50-68 years) and the Matures (69-plus years) record the fastest rise in social-media consumption. And when it comes to news, Millennials are now using social media as their primary news source, while across the board, the proportion of survey respondents using social media as their first source of news has doubled to 20 per cent (up from 9 per cent the previous year).
