Only four percent of adults online use location-based services, according to Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life study.
Location based services include sites and mobile apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, programs that allow users to "check-in" to various locations and tell their friends where they are. Like a game, they allow users to "unlock" badges, like the "I Voted" badge that Foursquare gave to users who checked in at a polling place on election day this Tuesday. Users can also become the "mayor" of a certain venue for having the most check-ins within a 60-day period. However, Foursquare has recently cracked down on users that gain the title through illegitimate means. Many businesses offer incentives like discounted drinks or free food for those who check-in or unlock levels at their location.
The report analyzed the use of these services among 3,000 adults over the age of 18 to find that on a given day, just one percent of the Internet population is using them. The data, released Thursday, hasn't fluctuated since the last time the same habit was analyzed in May, when five percent of Internet users reported participating in location-based services.
Pew's data showed that younger adults (ages 18-29) are the heaviest users of these sites, with eight percent that said they use location-based services. Users are mobile, too; seven percent of adults who use a smartphone to surf the web reported ascribing what Pew calls "geosocial" services.
Men are more inclined than women to share their location, the study said. While six percent of men use programs like Foursquare, only three percent of women in the study admitted to using them.
Compared to three percent of white adults and five percent of black adults surveyed, 10 percent of Hispanics said that they are subscribers.
The study also showed significant growth in the use of Twitter, which recently integrated user location in Tweets. Twenty-four percent of online adults reported that they Tweet in September 2010, while in August 2008, six percent said they used the micro-blogging site.
This summer, Facebook launched its own location-based service, Facebook Places.