Yahoo! crunched lots of numbers and proved what many social network users have suspected – people who share the most information tend to be younger males with liberal social and political viewpoints. They also like to stir things up.
What Yahoo! refers to as Power Sharers are 61 percent male and 42 percent under 35 years old. They’re slightly more likely than not to have kids (52 percent don’t), and to be married (45 percent are single).
This group also has an interesting motivation for sharing. Most people want to express themselves by sharing entertaining and informative information. Regarding these Power Sharers, however, “Yahoo!’s researchers found that they are motivated by the need to start and develop provocative digital dialogues.”
They tend to be more socially liberal (42 percent) than socially conservative (17 percent). And a third of them are politically liberal (33 percent), while a fifth (22 percent) are politically conservative.
The study, called Yahoo! and Added Value, started by determining that 56 percent of people on social networks share information at least once a day. It then broke out “Power Sharers,” the 15 percent who shared information the most frequently, and checked that group’s demographics in aggregate.
Related Link:
Yahoo! Advertising Blog – http://tinyurl.com/3veoqpq
Photo by flickr user webtreats, used under Creative Commons license
Infographic courtesy of Yahoo!
