Nowadays, the social media is taking a major part of many American lives- About 65% of all adults (18+ years of age) have used social networks in 2011. With such a great potential influence on any work at home, it is important to understand the basic reasons why people are using these social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Pew Research Center conducted a nationwide telephone survey in April-May this year to examine why indeed American are using the social media. It surveyed 2,277 people (1,522 in land-line phone and 755 in cell phone) in English and Spanish. Here are the survey main findings:

Connecting With Friends/Family Is Important The Most
The main reasons for using social networking sites are to stay connected with friends or family- 67% defined “staying in touch with friends” as a major reason to use social networks and 64% defined “staying in touch with family” as a major reason. In addition, 50% defined “connecting with old friends” as a major reason.

Finding Romance? Not So Much…
The lowest rated reason for using social networking sites was “finding romantic/dating partners” where only 3% defined it as a major reason and the big majority (84%) defined it as not a reason at all to use the social media. However, just between the “single” respondents it is a little bit more significant reason.

Not Following Known Figures
Also, it seems that people aren’t so interested in social postings of known figures- Only 5% defined “reading comments by celebrities/athletes/politicians” (known figures) as a major reason while 74% defined it as not a reason at all and 20% defined it as a minor reason.

Twitter Users Follows More Known Figures
It seems however, that Twitter users likes to follow known figures at a higher rate than in any other social networks- 11% of Twitter users defined “reading comments by celebrities/athletes/politicians” (known figures) as a major reason and 30% defined it as a minor reason.