Survey: Facebook Dominates Check-ins, 30 Percent Geotag Posts

A new survey from the Pew Research Center focuses on the use of location on mobile devices. It found that roughly three-quarters (74 percent) of smartphone users access directions and other location-related information on their devices.

The survey also found that checking in has declined in popularity since last year. Among “check-in” services Facebook is the most widely used, followed by Foursquare.

The graphic above compares use of location-related services and check-ins. Use of the former has remained steady; however checking-in has dropped from 18 percent to 12 percent since 2012. There’s no hypothesis offered about why check-in services have declined beyond the suggestion that Foursquare’s move away from check-ins may have impacted user behavior.

Among those sites or apps used to check-in, Facebook leads (39 percent), followed by Foursquare (18 percent) with Google+ surprisingly not very far behind (14 percent). It should be noted that the sample here is extremely small (141 users) and the data may be unreliable.

Another finding in the survey is that roughly a third of adults are location-tagging posts on social media sites. Pew says that 30 percent of adult social media users have automated location tagging on at least one of their accounts:

Our May 2013 survey found that 30% of adult social media users say that at least one of their accounts is currently set up to include their location in their posts, up from 14% who had ever done this in 2011.

For those under 18 automated geotagging is far less common. The survey found only “16 percent of teen social media users said they set up their profile or account so that it automatically includes their location in posts.”

In a separate survey conducted last year Pew found that 46 percent of teens have turned off location tracking features on their cell phone or in an app.