A recent survey by the PewResearchCenter’s Internet & American Life Project , conducted at a national level, shows that six percent of online adults in the US are reddit users.
This is Pew’s first survey that specifically examines reddit as a standalone platform, and it finds that young men are especially likely to visit the site.
According to this study, some 15% of male internet users ages 18-29 say that they use reddit, compared with 5% of women in the same age range and 8% of men ages 30-49.
Self-described as the “front page of the internet,” reddit is a bulletin of user-submitted text, links, photos, and videos. The site hosts active sub-communities on a wide selection of topics, ranging from world news headlines, to animal GIFs, to fan forums and various niche topics.
The popularity and prominence of material on the site is determined by voting from the reddit community. reddit gained widespread publicity when President Barack Obama took part in the site’s “Ask Me Anything” series in August 2012, and again in April 2013 when the site was used as a collaboration space for amateur sleuths attempting to identify the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings.
Overall, men are twice as likely as women to be reddit users, those under 50 are significantly more likely to use reddit than those 50 or older, and the site is much more common among urban and suburban residents than among those living in rural areas.
The report also shows the fact that just 2% of internet users ages 50 and older—and 2% of rural residents—say they use the site.
reddit features a user-voting system (called up- and down-voting) to rank posts, comments, and links within its sub-communities (known as subreddits). Subreddits and posts can range from the serious to the absurd, and from general topics to niche interests.
The results in the current report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from April 17 to May 19, 2013, among a sample of 2,252 adults, age 18 and older.
“In a separate survey in December 2012, we asked about the use of a number of other social media platforms. The proportion of online adults who use reddit is similar to the proportion that use Tumblr (also 6%), and around half the number that use Twitter (16%), Pinterest (15%), or Instagram (13%). Some 67% of online adults are Facebook users”, said Pew officials.
