I Created A Survey About Student Social Media and Music Consumption Habits, And This Is What I Found
I created and distributed a survey about student social media and music consumption habits, and I found the results to be pretty interesting.
My target demographic was college students, or anyone between the ages of 18–30.
Drawing from a pool of students at Dominican University of California, the school I attend, I had 54 respondents, the majority of which were within the 18–22 age bracket (74.07%), and female (79.63%). The gender distribution reflects the gender demographic of the school, which is 73.7% female.[1]
Of the 54 respondents, 68.52% identified as white/Caucasian, reflecting the demographics of the surrounding Marin County.
One of the first questions I asked was: “What types of social media do you frequent in general? (please check all that apply).” All respondents reported using Facebook, a result that did not surprise me. Additionally, 87.04% of respondents reported using Instagram and Snapchat, and 68.52% reported using YouTube. Less than half of respondents (42.59%) reported using Twitter regularly.
The majority of respondents (29.63%) reported using Spotify as the music platform they use most often to download or stream music. (I, personally, use Spotify as well.) Coming in at a close second were Pandora (24.07%) and iTunes/Apple Music (20.37%).
The most commonly used device for listening to music was the smartphone (75.93%), a predictable result given the trends in today’s society. A 2015 Pew study found that 64% of American adults now own a smartphone of some kind. The study also found that, over the course of the study period, 64% of younger adults used their smartphones at one time or another to listen to music or podcasts.[2]
The majority of participants (51.85%) responded “no” when asked if they follow their friends/other people/music artists on a music-streaming platform to see what music they are listening to. However, the majority of respondents (68.52%) did say that they use social media to follow/stay up-to-date with their favorite artists (Facebook pages, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube channels, etc.).
One of the questions that I was most interested in was how participants find out about new music. One-third of respondents (33.33%) reported that they found out about new music from friends/word of mouth, while 31.48% reported discovering new music from the radio. Another 22.22% reported finding new music through social media. I included an “other (please specify)” fill-in option to this question. Six of the 54 respondents chose to fill in their own answer; many participants reported finding new music through “recommended music” on Spotify/YouTube/Soundcloud, and also through the rotating songs of Pandora.
By far the most interesting responses (IMO) were to a question I decided to add for curiosity’s sake: “How often do you listen to the radio?” I listen to the radio all the time; it’s how I find out about new music/the most current songs. Sometimes, I will connect my iPhone to my car via a cassette adapter and play music through Spotify, but the overwhelming majority of the time I will just listen to the radio. With this question, I was predicting that the majority of respondents would say that they never listen to the radio, because, well, “radio is dead,” right?
I was surprised to find that 31.48% of participants reported listening to the radio “all the time,” and the same number (31.48%) reported listening to the radio “sometimes, when I don’t want to play DJ.” Only two respondents reported “never” listening to the radio.
Overall, the results were pretty interesting (not to mention SurveyMonkey’s analytics/graphics were totally fascinating. 10/10 would recommend). This was a pilot study, but I would expand to include more respondents for future studies.
All graphics courtesy of SurveyMonkey.
References
[1] Dominican university of california. (2014). Retrieved Dec 7, 2015, from http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/dominican-california-1196.
[2]Smith, A. (2015). U.S. smartphone use in 2015. Retrieved Dec 9, 2015, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/.
