Study: younger Australian women dominate social media use

Younger Australian females dominate social media use, according to a new study by research firm Roy Morgan investigating the social media habits in this country.

Research found that the average Australian aged 14-+ spends almost six hours per week on social media.

On average Australian women spend 56 minutes per day (or 391 minutes per week) on social media compared to 41 minutes per day (287 minutes per week) for men.

Over the course of a week this equates to a difference of almost two hours.

Roy Morgan includes in its social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, WhatsApp, MeetUp, Reddit, Google Hangouts, Yahoo7 Messenger & Answers, Skype, WordPress, Flickr, Imgur, Pinterest, Messenger, Snapchat, Viber, WeChat and Yammer

Women aged 14-24 years old now spend a staggering 822 minutes per week using social media of one type or another.

This is an average of almost two hours per day.

The biggest difference between women and men is considerable when they are younger.

Women aged 14-24 spend nearly five hours, or 294 minutes, more time on social media per week than men aged 14-24.

Similarly, women aged 25-34 spend 183 minutes more time on social media per week than men aged 25-34.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, says the figures show that social media is an increasingly important way for advertisers to reach hard-to-engage consumers

But she points out, “Of course social media isn’t just one big market but rather differentiated by a large variety of overlapping and varied networks that appeal to different aspects of a user’s experience.

“Different Australians engage with social media in their own way and for their own reasons.”