According to the latest Audiweb data, About 74.5% of the Italian population surfs the Internet every month: On average, each user spends approximately 58 hours online in 30 days. A large part of our Internet experience takes place within well-defined contexts, which draw the geography of our experience of the web and the world around us.
There, social networks undoubtedly represent one of the most rooted habits, in Italian and worldwide users. In our country, one person spends on average about 16 hours a month on social platformswhich they access 38.5 million people every day.
And access, especially for a long period of time, does not mean only a neutral, passive use. Instead, it means developing a relationship with that space, with its functionality, with the people who inhabit it. To understand the terms of this report, Italian Tech and SWG conducted a research within the Hi-Tech Observatory.
The data tells about our relationship with social platforms, between habit, disillusionment and fears.
Different generations, different habits
There are no social networks, in an absolute sense. Exist different social networks, which are accessed by different people, with variable purposes. This is particularly true when it comes to age: according to the data obtained by Italian Tech, the relationship with the platforms changes completely depending on the year of birth.
For example, for those born between the 80s and the 2000s, the relationship with social networks tends to be positive, between those who consider them useful and those who are even part of their identity. The figure reverses with increasing age: almost 45% of Baby Boomerborn between the ’50s and’ 60s, consider the relationship with social networks superfluous or useless.
Age also significantly changes habits. For the youngest, the social networks to frequent, to come back to every day, are above all Instagram and TikTok. Among the largest, however, resists Facebook, still a point of reference for 80% of Baby Boomer.
More entertainment than social relationships
The very idea of social networks is built around social relations: it is the theory of nodes, for which each of us is hub of a series of relationships that can come into contact with each other. Despite this, the purpose of using the platforms has changed a lot over time. For the 56% of the sample interviewed, social networks are above all an entertainment toola way to spend 10 minutes of distraction in the daily routine.
Of course, the number of those who say to remains high use social platforms to keep in touch with friends or look for new ones, but this is especially true for social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, which still have the social component firmly within the possibilities offered to users. Different, however, the speech for TikTok, which is used almost exclusively for entertainment purposes. In a different band Twitter e LinkedIn which, due to their characteristics, are mostly used for very specific objectives: to find news in the first case, look for work or find earning opportunities In the second.
My eyes please: what catches our attention
Social networks have, among other things, redefined the boundaries of the battle for our attention. Every time we open a platform, we are invaded by a very high number of contents: among these, we have to choose those to which to lend a portion of our interest. Here, according to the data collected by Swg and Italian Tech, it is photos and images in general to capture our attention more. Here too there is a generational difference: beyond images, Generation Z prefers videos and stories, the largest written posts, comments and articles.
The attention speech is important because the most users experience social networks as a user and not as a content producer. Over 50% of those who frequent all major platforms are there for watch and not to publish content. This number could have to do with one of the most widespread fears within social networks, that of the judgment of others, which represents an inhibition factor for 3 out of 4 users.
Why we abandon social networks
Our relationship with social networks is made up of lights and shadows. And if the share of enthusiastic and critical users is equally divided, there are people who have in recent years decided to leave the platforms. This happens for different reasons, which depend a lot on the type of social network.
Those who abandon Facebook, for example, did so mainly because they were tired of too many fake news or excessive and unpleasant content. Those who leave TikTok, on the other hand, do so mainly because they cannot control the time spent inside the application and those who leave Instagram because they no longer like the image it offers of themselves within that space.
These numbers tell a lot about the problems of all these social networks in recent years. Facebook has long faced accusations of spreading fake news, while whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed how internal documents showed the dangers of Instagram in self-perception, especially for younger girls. The newcomer TikTok, on the other hand, can generate addiction: his algorithm is built precisely to keep users glued to the platform as much as possible.
The future: between mistrust and the prospects of the metaverse
If this is the present, in the future, Italians see even more fake news and hate speechwith less privacy and more dependence. The only positive prospect is freedom of expression, for which no substantial changes are expected compared to today.
The possible successor of social networks as we understand them today could be the metaverso. Italians are convinced of this: for 50% of the interviewees, the immersive environment made popular by Mark Zuckerberg is the next step in the evolution of the Internet. Within this virtual space, users imagine they can move a part of their daily life, from training to free time, to online shopping.
The transition to the metaverse, however, does not generate enthusiasm: in the majority of respondents, the metaverse arouses concern, sadness or indifference.
Informative note Values expressed in%. Dates of execution: February 16-21, 2022. Survey method: CAWI survey on a national representative sample of 1,000 subjects aged 14-75.
Infographics: Annalisa D’Aprile, Matteo Riva