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Published 04 Feb, 2014 07:15am

‘Dislikes’ fail to keep people off Facebook: survey

WASHINGTON: There's a lot that users dislike about Facebook, but that hasn't kept people off the world's biggest social network.

A survey released on Monday found more than half of Americans who use Facebook are turned off by the notion that people are sharing too much information about themselves. Some 36 per cent said they “strongly dislike” this and another 25pc said they “dislike” the idea.

A similar percentage said they didn't like the fact that they showed up in pictures without giving permission.

And among users with children, nearly three in four objected to the posting of pictures of their kids without permission, said the Pew Research Centre survey.

Yet the survey — released as Facebook celebrates its 10th anniversary — suggests no slowing momentum for the network, which has more than 1.2 billion users worldwide.

Users said they appreciate photos and videos from friends — 47pc of respondents said that is a major reason they use the site.

And 46pc said a key reason for using Facebook is the ability to share with many people at once.Half of all the Facebook users surveyed said they had more than 200 friends.

Among those in the 18-29 age bracket, one in four had 500 friends or more. Pew provided further analysis for a survey released last year which showed 71 per cent of Americans who use the internet were on Facebook, making it the dominant social networking platform.

The research centre said that among the non-Facebook users, 52 per cent had someone in their household who used it. That included 66 per cent of parents with a child living at home who do not use Facebook themselves, but had someone in their home with a Facebook account.

The research is based on a survey of 1,801 adults conducted from August 7 to September 16. For results based on the 960 Facebook users, the margin of error is estimated at 3.5 percentage points.—AFP

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