Social media usage has dropped across a number of countries, with UK accounting for the greatest decline, new report claims.
According to a recent survey conducted by U.K. telecoms regulator Ofcom, using data from 9,065 consumers across nine countries, the use of social networking sites has dropped in China, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States during 2014.
The drop was most prominent in the UK, where number of visitors to social networks fell from 65 percent to 56 percent between September 2013 and October 2014. In the United States, the usage dropped from 56 percent to 54 percent during the same time period.
In China, the dip was 62 per cent down to 57 per cent, while in Japan, the drop was from 45 per cent down to 42 per cent.
However, the report found that other countries like Germany, Italy and Australia saw social network use increase over the same period, with Italy recording the biggest usage bump from 60 percent to 75 percent. Spain also saw an increase from 72 per cent to 74 per cent.
Ofcom’s International Communications Market Report 2014 suggest one of the reasons for the decline in social media usage could be due to the growth of social media apps and services which do not involve networks of connections such as instant messaging services like WhatsApp and WeChat.
Although Brits’ social media access dropped, it remained the most popular internet activity for 64 per cent of respondents followed by 44 per cent who use it to read news.
