Social media drives increased email use

Despite an initial hypothesis that increased time on social networks might be taking Americans away from their email, a Nielsen research analysis found that the heaviest social media users actually use email more, perhaps because of the steady stream of messages that social networks dump into participants’ inboxes.

Nielsen then examined the amount of time that each group spent on email in the year before the study, and subtracted the email consumption of those who do not use social media from those who do in order to account for possible external forces.

Study found that social media use appears to makes people consume email more, not less, particularly for the heaviest social media users.

In other words, findings make sense because social media sites such as Facebook send numerous and periodic status-update and notification messages to social media users’ email addresses.

See chart on MarketingCharts.com.