6 Oddly Fascinating Facts You Didn't Know About Facebook

Impact

Facebook just turned 10 this week, and as Pew Research Center observes, it's been a resounding decade. Fifty-seven percent of American adults now use Facebook, and 73% of all those ages 12-17 have a profile. And while teens are starting to use the site less, not many of them have decided to ditch their profile.

In other words, Facebook is still dominant (despite predictions that it could have a massive die-off in the near future), and most of us use it every day (64% of Facebook is comprised of daily users, up from 51% in 2010). So Pew did a little polling, and found out six things you probably didn't know about Facebook.

1. FOMO is a lie

Forget the fabled "Fear Of Missing Out," or the theory that Facebook encourages you to feel left out of other people's fun activities. Actually, the acronym people hate most is TMI (too much information), followed by others sharing information or photos of you without permission. Just 5% of Facebook users strongly dislike seeing posts about social activities they weren't involved in; 84% aren't bothered by it at all.

2. Men and women use Facebook for similar reasons

There's some notable divergences (29% of women use it for receiving support, as opposed to 16% of men), but largely men and women use Facebook for similar reasons — seeing photos and videos of their friends, sharing with many people at once and seeing funny or entertaining posts.

3. Half of all adult Facebook users have 200+ friends

A breakdown of all users below:

39% have 1-100 Facebook friends 23% have 101-250 friends 20% have 251-500 friends 15% have more than 500 friends

Younger users have even more — 27% of 18-29 year olds have more than 500 Facebook friends, while 72% of users 65+ have 100 friends or fewer. The average number of friends adult Facebook users have is 338, and the median is 200.

4. 12% of users have been asked to unfriend someone

In an age where Facebook can often be the key to a social circle (event invites, status updates, etc.), unfriending can be a pretty big deal. Around 12% of users have been asked to unfriend someone by someone else, including 19% of 18-29 year olds.

Among other demographics, the rate is lower: 10% of 30-49 year olds, 7% of 50-64 year olds and 5% of those 65 and older.

The unfriend requests mostly come from friends (35%) or from current (23%) or former (12%) romantic partners. 38% were told to unfriend a friend, and 22% a former romantic partner.

So Facebook isn't very jealous, then. That's around 2.64% of users that have received a request to unfriend an ex.

5. Mostly, users just "like" stuff

Forty-four percent of Facebook users use the "like" function at least once per day, with 29% doing it several times a day. Thirty-one percent comment on photos, and 15% do it several times a day. And 19% send private messages, just 10% every day.

But just 10% update their status once a day, and only 4% update multiple times. If you're a multiple-status-a-day kinda person, you might feel pretty annoying right now.

6. Half of people with internet who don't use Facebook live with someone who does

Internet users who don't have Facebook live with someone else who does 52% of the time. Usually these are parents. Sixty-six percent of parents with a child say that someone in their household does ... the obvious suspect is their child. Twenty-four percent of non-users who live with a Facebook member sometimes use their account to look at photos, however ... with the obvious suspect this time being the parents.