1. Continuous Assessment Cover Sheet.
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS AND HUMANITIES
STUDENT NUMBER: N00100664
________________________________________________
STUDENT NAME: Thomas Roe
________________________________________________
PROGRAMME: Dl-245
________________________________________________
YEAR: 2
________________________________________________
MODULE: Enterprise Communications
________________________________________________
LECTURER: Mrs. Rebecca Roper
________________________________________________
WORD COUNT: 1529
I/ we have read the IADT plagiarism policy and I / We declare
that this report/essay/project is my/our own original work
SIGNED: __________________________________________
DATE: __________________________________________

2. The Demographics of Social Media Users
The Demographics of Social Media
Users
Introduction
This study was conducted to examine the demographics of both
social media users, as well as the attraction to the different
types of social media to different demographics. This is
becoming increasingly important as” users’ personality traits
may be crucial factors leading them to engage in this
participatory media” (Correa, et al., 2009) . This study is
important in the current age of the internet, web 2.0, as it
helps companies and individuals target specific audiences; let
them know if it is worth their time using social media and also
what type of social media to use. The information for this study
was obtained from other journal s, the internet and a study
made by the author for this research paper. The structure of
this report will have a section dedicated to comparing and
contrasting the main reference articles and another section
built on the survey undertaken, with a short conclusion and
summary.
Comparison of Articles
Personality traits are a common theme in all t hree articles used
for this study. It is clear that they have a massive impact on
what we do and how we interact, which is also evident in social
media. For instance “The relationship between extraversion and
social media use was particularly important” (Correa, et al.,
2009).This is not to say only extroverts use social media as
(Boyd & Ellison, 2007) says that different SNS’s (social network
sites) attract different traits among people. It is difficult to say
which traits go to the different sites but there are some which
may or may not deal with personality, the next section will deal
with this in more detail. But to continue with the personality
trait of extraversion and perhaps openness the “exp eriences
were positively related to social media use” (Correa, et al.,
2009) but this is almost a given since extroverts in general are
more open to change and new concepts. Although both men and
women were both as likely to be social media users “only the
men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more
regular users” (Correa, et al., 2009) which asks the question if
these emotionally instable men are a mix both introverts and
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3. The Demographics of Social Media Users
extroverts, are men going to be attracted to social media
anyway? In short, no not exactly, as these are only emotionally
instable men and this doesn’t count the far greater number of
emotionally stable men out there.
In keeping with the themes of emotions, dating s ites are an
extremely popular form of social networking as demonstrated
by Friendster in the early 2000s and its rival match.com now.
Friendster and match.com focused on different demographics,
match.com being aimed at “strangers with similar interests”
(Boyd & Ellison, 2007) and Friendster being at aimed at
friends-of-friends. Friendster had massive growth and struggled
to cope at the time, this was down to people being more
comfortable dating someone their friend knows and att racted
more introverted people as they didn’t want to talk to someone
they knew nothing about, there were a lot of restrictions in
Friendster’s model which led to people trying to cheat the
system, only to be banned, which lead to its overall demises,
which shows people don’t like being told they can’t do
something. Match.com on the other hand, has no restrictions
and allows people to do what they like it was founded before
Friendster and is still running strong today. Match.com is more
attractive to extroverts due to meeting new people and its lack
of restrictions, which fits in with the internet dating model of
mainly extroverts, but Friendster mainly dealt with more
introverted people, “ (Boyd & Ellison, 2007)bloggers, attendees of
the Burning Man arts festival, and gay men”, which ultimately
lead to its down fall.
Another key factor in determining which demographics are
attracted to each different SNS was race, with SNS’s such
AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and MiGente (Boyd & Ellison, 2007)
all forming and attracting their particular ethnic group, with the
black community going to BlackPlanet, the Asian community
going to AsianAvenue and the Hispanic community going to
MiGente. These cultural gr oups were more prominent in the
earlier years of SNS’s with main sites dominating the web now,
instead of many smaller ones.
“History repeatedly demonstrates that rural communities have
unique technological needs” (Gilbert, et al., 2008). In (Gilbert,
et al., 2008) a study took place between rural and urban users
of a particular social media site, with 3000 taking part,
“340,000 online friendships and 200,000 interpersonal
messages” (Gilbert, et al., 2008) being analyzed. It found
strong evidence that area demographics have a strong
influence on your social media activities, notably, rural
By Thomas Roe Page 3

4. The Demographics of Social Media Users
residents had far fewer friends with the friends they do have
living a lot closer to them. Also it was found that there were
“substantially different gender distributions” (Gilbert, et al.,
2008) This again shows not only does one form of demographic
impact the social media audience but the tw o different types of
demographic effect each other to have considerable different
effects, that shows the importance of looking at all the facts in
relation to demographics.
SNS’s hit mainstream in 2003 (Boyd & Ellison, 2007) with their
being several main SNS’s at this moment in time (2011) each
has a particular demographic target;
Site Demographic target
LinkedIn Business Professionals
YouTube Video Enthusiasts
Facebook Anyone over 13
Google+ Anyone over 13
Twitter Micro bloggers
Flickr Photograph Enthusiasts
Xbox Live Video Game Enthusiasts
PlayStation Network Video Game Enthusiasts
Most people are members of at least one of these sites , if not
more, with the difference between these and the earlier models
being polished and finished and as well the ability to categorize
different friends which creates individual sites for particular
interests inside these SNS’s , this has led to the folding of many
smaller SNS’s for people with particular interests such as Bebo
and MySpace both directed at musicians , these are both still
active but are ants compared their former giant selves . SNS’s
are only going to continue to grow into the future, with the
biggest of them being worth close to $10bn now, so one can
only imagine wh at the future holds.
Survey and analysis
A survey was undertaken for the purpose of this research paper and was
designed as to reflect and/or contrast previous research done. It was
open to all who wanted to participate, but was focused mainly on
members of I.A.D.T. There were a small number of participants totaling
10 people with eight questions to be answered. There was an answer rate
of 0.875 per question which is extremely high for a survey. The survey
itself took place between the 6th and 7th of December 2011 via a survey
website (Roe, 2011).
By Thomas Roe Page 4

5. The Demographics of Social Media Users
As in line with research there were a higher number of male respondents,
further pushing the case of men being more extroverted, with only 40%
women. These men and women ranged in age from 18 to over 30
showing a varied demographic.
Gender Age
20-30 10%
30+ 10%
Female 40%
18-20 80%
Male 60%
Again as researched before, the area where someone is living has an
impact on their use of social media, with respondents living at varied
distances from I.A.D.T. with 90% being of Irish decent. All respondents
used social media with Facebook having majority share with 70% of
respondents saying it was their favorite form of social media an
interesting point to note is that 80% of respondents said they liked the
social media site they used but 30% said they only used it because their
friends used it. So this asks the question is there much of a difference in
social media use in all these demographics? One dominating factor in
terms demographics that seems to over shadow the rest and influence is
that 100% of participants were students; this explains the very similar
numbers being received.In saying that, there was one section of the
survey that had largely different results; Time spent using social media
today, here is a chart to illustrate this:
Time Spent per Day using Social Media
4-6hrs
10%
<1hr
30%
2-4hrs
60%
By Thomas Roe Page 5

6. The Demographics of Social Media Users
As you can see from the chart there is a larger difference than in the
previous examples, with 50% of female respondents spending less than 1
hour per day using social media and 100% of respondents over the age of
30 with less than 1 hour as well. These further back up pervious research
with men dominating the 2-4 hour slot and shows that men tend to be
more extroverted in relation to social media. Overall this is an extremely
small scale survey and even with its lack of participants, it still shows
what the research has said previous and demonstratesthat even in small
scale project, it is possible to get the same results as one with thousands
of people.
Conclusion
In conclusion the research explores the d em og r aph i c s o f b o th s oci al m edi a
u s e rs , a s w el l as th e att r ac ti on to th e d i ffe r en t t yp e s of s oc i al medi a t o
di ff e r en t d em og r aph i cs . It sh ow e d th e l i n k b etw e en th e j ou r n al s stu di e d
an d th e su r v ey u n d e rta k en . Th e su rv e y i t’ s - s el f d e m on s tr at e d th at th e
th e o ri e s i n th e j ou r n al s, pu t i n to p ra cti c e, h a v e si mi l ar ou t c o m es a n d
th u s fu rt h er en h an c e s th e val u e o f th i s r e s ea r ch . Al th ou gh i t i s s ti l l
su gg e st fu r th e r r e s e ar ch b ei n g d on e , a s to c o mpl e m en t th i s wo r k . O v e ral l
th i s stu d y pu t th e o r y i n t o pr a cti c e an d i t w o r k ed , gi vi n g re a s on f o r
gr e at e r d e v el op m en t i n th e t opi c .
Bibliography
Boyd, D. M. & Ellison, N. B., 2007. Social Network Sites: Definition,
History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,
13(1), pp. 210-230.
Correa, T., Willard Hinsley, A. & Gil de Zuniga, H., 2009. Who interacts on
the Web?: The intersection of users’ personality and social media use.
26(2), pp. 247-253.
Gilbert, E., Karahalios, K. & Sandvig, C., 2008. The network in the
garden: an empirical analysis of social media in rural life.
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Roe, T., 2011. Social Media Use Survey. Leinster: s.n.
Wikipedia, 2011. Wikipedia. [Online]
Available at: www.wikipedia.org
[Accessed 7 12 2011].
By Thomas Roe Page 6