Pew Research says that photos and videos have become “key social currencies,” and they have some new figures to back that up.
According to a recent report from their Internet & American Life Project, 56% of adult internet users posts photos or videos online. That means interacting visually with networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pew breaks down these media distributors into two categories: Creators and Curators.
Creators are those who share photos and videos that they have taken themselves. They found that 45% of internet users post their own photos to social networks, while 18% post their own videos.
Curators are those who share photos and videos that they’ve found online, but didn’t produce themselves. According to the report, 35% of internet users curate photos, while 25% curate videos.
“The internet has always been a platform for creators and curators,” said Pew Internet’s Joanna Brenner, co-author of the report. “Now, as social media services continue to grow and expand, the tools are more visual and social, and that seems to be attracting special audiences of early adopters.”
The true content distributors, those that both create and curate, make up about one-third of the online adult population (32%).
In terms of creators, they are predominately younger. 67% of those aged 18-29 share their own photos, along with 50% of those aged 30-49. The same goes for videos, as 33% of 18-29-year-olds and 18% of 30-49-year-old share their own content. As far as curators go, the younger crowd also rules. Women, as a group, are also more likely to be curators or photos and videos.