Facebook Declines For The First Time In Infinite Dial History

The Infinite Dial research series from Edison Research and Triton Digital has been tracking Facebook usage since 2008, and that usage has steadily increased for ten straight years. But this year, for the first time in our tracking, the portion of Americans reporting that they currently ever use the service has declined from 67% to 62% among Americans 12+.

Usage is down or flat in every demographic age group, gender, and ethnicity.  It should be noted that despite these declines Facebook remains by far the most-used social media service.  A number of other social media services, however, continued to show robust growth, making this diminishment particular to Facebook. We also ask what social media site or service people use the most. Here, too, Facebook declined.

We will reveal that decline, along with surprising new data on streaming media, podcasting, mobile technology, and more in a free broadcast on Facebook live, at 2 PM on March 8th. You don’t need a Facebook account to view the broadcast–you only need a browser.

To register for the event, receive reminders, and a free copy of the full report after the broadcast airs, sign up for The Infinite Dial 2018 here.

How the study was conducted:

A total of 2,000 persons were interviewed to explore Americans’ use of digital platforms and new media. From January 4, 2018 to February 11, 2018, telephone interviews were conducted with respondents age 12 and older who were selected via Random Digit Dial (RDD) sampling for both cell phones and landlines.