Private contacts are more important than professional ones
Half of the Swiss population aged 14 and older uses social networks for personal purposes, with viewing other users’ profiles and posts being their most common activity. Only one-tenth use social media to maintain their professional contacts. These are the findings of the latest figures from the NET-Metrix-Base 2016-1 baseline study on internet usage in Switzerland.
The use of social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Xing or LinkedIn has increased compared to last year: from 48.3 percent to 51.3 percent. Today, 3.4 million people in Switzerland use such platforms - the vast majority (70 percent) are so-called heavy users and log into social networks daily or almost daily. Three quarters spend their time on Facebook & Co. reading and looking at other people's profiles and posts. Seven out of ten users also use the platforms to send and receive personal messages. Commenting on or liking posts is still very popular.
Professional networking on the Net, on the other hand, is practiced by a minority: one in ten Swiss, or 700 thousand people, use Xing, LinkedIn and the like, reading profiles and posts from groups or organizations almost as often as posts from other users. Men enjoy virtual professional networking more than women - they are heavily overrepresented with a ratio of 7 to 3.
Top smartphone
It seems that social networks are often visited on the move on the train, bus or while waiting, as three quarters of users access them on their smartphone. 7 out of 10 also prefer a larger screen for browsing, liking and commenting and use a laptop or desktop PC for this. A tablet is also regularly used by over 40 percent or 1.4 million users when visiting Facebook, Xing & Co. The two device categories of smart TV and MP3 player fall far behind, with only 1.3 percent and 1.0 percent of users using them to surf social networks from time to time. Social network users are mostly multi-device users: Two-thirds use three or more devices. Only around 7 percent (= 250 thousand users) go online with just one device.
