FILE - In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on a mobile device in Philadelphia. (Associated Press)
The latest Fox News poll finds a large minority of current Facebook users have considered deleting their profiles, including almost half of the tech-savvy millennials.
The poll also shows most users are lurkers rather than active posters. More on that later.
READ THE COMPLETE POLL RESULTS.
Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of current users say they care if Facebook shares their information with others, and a large 43 percent minority have thought about deleting their account in order to protect their privacy. Eleven percent of voters overall say “they used to have a Facebook account, but don’t anymore.”
Gen Xers (50 percent) and millennials (46 percent) are more likely than baby boomers (36 percent) to say the “delete my account” option has crossed their minds.
Still, more than half of users haven’t contemplated scrapping the site from their lives (54 percent).
The poll, released Thursday, comes after reports in March that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm associated with the Trump campaign, collected the private information of as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on April 10 and 11.
Even so, Facebook manages to net a positive rating (48 percent favorable vs. 41 percent unfavorable), beating out Zuckerberg (37 percent vs. 45 percent) and Twitter (37 percent vs. 39 percent).
Lurker or poster? Sixty-two percent of voters who are Facebook users say they “mostly read what others post” rather than “actively post” (34 percent). This behavior is widespread as roughly 6-in-10 men, women, whites, non-whites, baby boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, and political partisans are more likely to lurk than post.
Broader views on social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are mixed: 34 percent say it’s a good thing for society, while 28 percent think it’s bad and 35 percent say it depends.
Pollpourri
While Twitter seems to be President Trump’s favorite mode of communication, its usage among voters pales compared to Facebook.
Twenty-nine percent of voters currently have a Twitter account, and another 13 percent say they used to have one but don’t anymore. Far more either have a Facebook account (74 percent) or used to have one (11 percent).
Even if a majority of voters aren’t on Twitter, they do have a reaction to the president’s tweets. Most think President Trump’s tweets are instant reactions to current events (61 percent) rather than “strategic” posts designed to help him accomplish his goals (19 percent).
Democrats (73 percent), independents (55 percent), and Republicans (50 percent) are all more likely to see the tweets as instant reactions instead of strategy.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,014 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from April 22-24, 2018. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters. The margin of sampling error for Facebook users is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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