PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

PCMag UK

Social Privacy Is on the Rise: Almost Half of Social Media Accounts Are Kept Private

A survey asking people how they use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok reveals people may be getting smarter about how they socialize online. Maybe.

Eric Griffith
 & Eric Griffith Senior Editor, Features

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

Our Expert
LOOK INSIDE PC LABS HOW WE TEST
65 EXPERTS
43 YEARS
41,500+ REVIEWS

ViasatSavings.com, an authorized reseller for the Viasat satellite internet service, asked 1,000 people in the US over age 18 how they use the major social-media networks these days: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

The results definitely defy the conventions of a few years ago, when it seemed everyone was willing to give away their privacy for a chance to share some pics or quips. Maybe it's the "influencer" culture of trying to hit it big with exclusivity, or maybe it's the constant barrage of stomped-upon privacy stories in the news, but the people who took part in this survey are being a lot more circumspect in how they share.

Facebook is the clear "winner," in that people are using it much more judiciously. Mark Zuckerberg probably won't like it, but the knowledge that at least three-quarters of Facebook users have blocked someone shows some forethought. Instagram (also owned by Facebook) is second, with 53 percent of users blocking at last one person.

Supposedly, 71 percent of the people 18 to 24 in the survey said they keep their social media accounts to log into other accounts. Ugh. Get a password manager.

It gets even more interesting to drill down into the Instagram and Facebook info. For example, women are twice as likely to block someone (particularly women ages 25 to 34). But over on Facebook, it's more even as far as which gender blocks people (and around 73 percent have done it).

BLOCK OTHERS GENDERS ON FACEBOOK AND INSTA

That's no shock. Women are twice as likely to make an account private in the first place—especially women from 45 to 54, the most private age group. (Weirdly, people over age 54 are most likely to keep social media accounts set to public.)

Facebook was the most used social network in the survey (91 percent had an account), and 57 percent of those users keep their accounts at least partially private. 79 percent of them won't even share their friends list.

Instagram was second. 50 percent of those users limit or filter comments; 63 percent have blocked at least one person from viewing their shared video and photos.

Related

TikTok is growing, but only 25 percent of the respondents had an account. 36 percent of those have blocked another user, and more women block than men.

Only 49 percent of the respondents use Twitter. 21 percent are public, 19 percent are private, and the rest don't know their settings (or have accounts that are both).

For more details, read the full report at viasatsavings.com.

Further Reading

Social Medium Reviews

About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

Read the latest from Eric Griffith

Read full bio