S. Koreans use social media more for entertainment than communication—survey

SEOUL — More South Koreans are utilizing social media for sources of entertainment contents than as a means of communications with friends, according to a report released by DMC Media on Monday.

According to the survey conducted on 1,000 people here aged between 20 and 60 over the last month, “viewing casually entertaining contents,” selected by 64 percent of the respondents, was the most popular reason for using social media. Other popular reasons for visiting social media platforms included “communicating” at 62 percent and “searching for information” at 59 percent.

Based on such results, the paper analyzed the use of social media as showing a shift from communication to the consumption of contents. 

Among the information searched for on social media, that related to daily life and interest was most popular, selected by 80.8 percent of the respondents. Recreational contents and recent news were also commonly searched for.

The report also showed that people here tend to be passive in taking actions on social media. 

“Viewing friends’ posts,” selected by 44 percent of respondents, was the most popular behavior taken by users on social media. “Searching information” was selected by 44.4 percent of respondents and “reading comments or observing public reactions” by 25.9 percent, while “like buttons” was selected by 32.9 percent and “leaving comments,” by only 20.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Facebook was the most popular social media network. Some 86.8 percent of respondents answered that they used Facebook, and 30.5 percent chose it as their most frequently visited site. Instagram at 74.5 percent, YouTube at 71.1 percent and Kakao Story at 66.6 percent followed, while Instagram beat out YouTube as respondents’ favorite social media site, following Facebook.