According to new research numbers released by consumer research agency GfK MRI, adult millenials (ages 18+) have been found to be the most active and dependent social media users today.
Of adults surveyed who had visited a social media website within the past 30 days, millennials were 33% more likely to feel that if they had not accessed said website, they would feel a sense of disconnection from others.
Contrasting those figures, GenXers were 14% more likely to disagree and Baby Boomers were even less likely to share the same sense of isolation as their younger counterparts at 28%. When asked about the value of social media to their everyday lives, again millennials outpaced their older counterparts by being 26% more likely to agree with that sentiment, while GenXers and Boomers were 8% and 26% less likely to agree respectively.
Millennials were also found to be 29% more likely to find that their social networking interactions and relationships are of equal value to real world equivalents, while again GenXers and Boomers were respectively 16% and 21% less inclined to agree. What does all this number crunching mean in the final analysis?
Well quite simply, it reaffirms the growing influence social media is creating amongst younger generations; while not an earthshaking fact, it does demonstrate though the blurring of lines between online and real world interaction more than ever.
Whether or not this is an overall positive development remains to be seen, however it does illustrate that no matter what their elders think youth and social media will be tied to the hip for quite some time.