This week, social media moguls like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg testified before Congress to explore whether algorithmic censorship is narrowing the window of opinions allowed on social media platforms.
That’s a deep and crunchy issue, and the answer lies most often in the political persuasions of each individual user. But it is also tethered to a larger conversation about how fulfilled consumers are by their social media experiences and how effective brands are at injecting themselves into the conversation.
According to Edison Research’s “The Infinite Dial” report, for the first time, fewer Americans are using social media than were in the prior year—77% in 2018 versus 80% in 2017. This comes after 12 years of year-over-year growth in the user base. Of this overall decline, Facebook appears to be driving the largest portion. According to the report, usage dropped from 67% to 62%. Facebook abandonment, it follows, is responsible for most social media abandonment overall.
