The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project has released its first report on location-based services, based on August and September, 2010 interviews with 3,001 online adults.
According to the report, 24% of all online adults now use a status update service such as Twitter, up from 6% in 2008. Of those status update users, 10% use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. This is more than double the average: across the sample, 4% of all U.S. online adults using such a service on any given day.
The findings show that location-based services users tend to be younger and mobile:
- 7% of adults who use their mobile phone to go online use a location-based service.
- 8% of online adults ages 18-29 use location-based services, significantly more than online adults in any other age group.
- 10% of online Hispanics use these services – significantly more than online whites (3%) or online blacks (5%).
- 6% of online men use a location-based service such as Foursquare or Gowalla, compared with 3% of online women.
Among online adults, 62% use a social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn. Of these social networking site users, 6% use a location-based service.
Download the full report from the Pew Internet web site.
