Although a majority of social media users (74%) aren’t considering deactivating their accounts, a decent number of users in the US and UK have already done that. What’s interesting is that younger users are more likely to deactivate their accounts as compared to older consumers.
Speaking in numbers, only 13% of the social media users aged between 55 and 64 deactivated an account against the 26% of users in the 16-24 age group. However, these young users consider deactivating an account to be a short-term solution.
According to a survey of more than 1,000 UK and US users, conducted by GlobalWebIndex, nearly half of the social media consumers (48%) aged between 16 and 24 have temporarily deactivated their accounts, as opposed to 30% of 55-64s. The younger audience prefers taking breaks from social media over completely turning their backs on these platforms.
Although it has been discussed earlier that women are decreasing their social media usage time more than men, the account deactivation has been observed more for the latter. Not only that but some of them are also considering to permanently shut down their social media accounts.
It has been found out that account deactivators still use social media fondly and spend an average of 2 hours and 35 minutes on these platforms on a daily basis.
Upon surveying people about their reasons behind account deactivations, it was concluded that there are multiple factors associated with it. The main ones are losing interest in the stuff shared by other people online (26%), wanting to spend more time doing other things (25%) and fearing the negative impact that present social media posts can have in the future (25%).
It has become common for people these days to be accused of something offensive they did or posted on social media in the past. This can tarnish their image in a matter of minutes. To avoid any such trouble, people have become cautious regarding what they share online.
It should also be noted that the recent security scandals have also played a part in driving away users from social media.
Read next: Whatsapp, TikTok, Facebook Messenger and more - These are the most downloaded apps worldwide
Speaking in numbers, only 13% of the social media users aged between 55 and 64 deactivated an account against the 26% of users in the 16-24 age group. However, these young users consider deactivating an account to be a short-term solution.
According to a survey of more than 1,000 UK and US users, conducted by GlobalWebIndex, nearly half of the social media consumers (48%) aged between 16 and 24 have temporarily deactivated their accounts, as opposed to 30% of 55-64s. The younger audience prefers taking breaks from social media over completely turning their backs on these platforms.
Although it has been discussed earlier that women are decreasing their social media usage time more than men, the account deactivation has been observed more for the latter. Not only that but some of them are also considering to permanently shut down their social media accounts.
It has been found out that account deactivators still use social media fondly and spend an average of 2 hours and 35 minutes on these platforms on a daily basis.
Upon surveying people about their reasons behind account deactivations, it was concluded that there are multiple factors associated with it. The main ones are losing interest in the stuff shared by other people online (26%), wanting to spend more time doing other things (25%) and fearing the negative impact that present social media posts can have in the future (25%).
It has become common for people these days to be accused of something offensive they did or posted on social media in the past. This can tarnish their image in a matter of minutes. To avoid any such trouble, people have become cautious regarding what they share online.
It should also be noted that the recent security scandals have also played a part in driving away users from social media.
Read next: Whatsapp, TikTok, Facebook Messenger and more - These are the most downloaded apps worldwide
