Higher earners prove more active on social media

Macau residents with higher incomes are more inclined than those on lower incomes to publicize their personal activities on social media, the Macau Media Research Center of Macau University of Science and Technology has found.

A total of 1,223 valid questionnaires were collected during the research process. Interviewees were aged between 18 and 40 years and approximately 60% have university degrees. The majority of respondents either work in the gaming industry or are civil servants.

According to the survey, 52% of respondents were active and made regular posts on social media. Over 10% of the interviewees reported that they never posted any information online, while 7% never engaged in any kind of online activity.

Younger respondents and wealthier individuals were found to be more active on social media.

Macau residents are also relying on new media (such as internet blogs and streaming services) and social media more frequently than traditional media, with two-thirds of the respondents reporting that they never, or rarely used traditional media. 

Macau local residents, in general, prefer to use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for their media needs, but also reported using Chinese social media applications such as WeChat and Weibo.

Respondents also tend to spend a larger portion of their time on social media on their mobile devices. Nearly 62% of respondents said they spend more than one hour per day on social media, while 26% spend more than three hours per day browsing social media.

Meanwhile, more than 81% of people who regularly browse new media do so for less than one hour per day.

While continuous growth has been recorded in the average time spent on social media in recent years, the time spent engaging with other forms of media has drastically declined to less than 30 minutes per day, according to the survey.