MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Most Russians (62%) have social media accounts, and 45% of those over the age of 18 use social networks nearly every day, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center said in a statement on Monday.
"At present, 45% of the respondents over the age of 18 use at least one social network nearly every day, while 62% at least once a week. At the same time, around one-third of those surveyed (20%) are absent from social media because they do not have access to the Internet, while another 10% do not have social media accounts," the statement reads.
As many as 38% of Russians use the Internet for no less than four hours a day, while 11% surf the Internet once a week and another four percent of those surveyed do it only a few times a month. A total of 20% of the poll’s participants do not use the Internet at all. At the same time, around seven percent have four or more social media accounts, 12% have three, while 22% have two and 21% have one.
VKontakte (or InContact), Odnoklassniki (or Classmates) and Instagram are the social network services most popular among Russians. In particular, 28% of those polled have VKontakte accounts, 19% have Odnoklassniki accounts, and 14% have Instagram accounts. Most VKontakte users (40%) are aged 25-34, while the age of the most active Instagram users (38%) varies from 18 to 24. As for Odnoklassniki, there are not many young users (8% are aged from 18 to 24), while most users are aged 24-34 (28%) and 45-59 (27%).
More than two-thirds of the poll’s participants (72%) use messengers, including WhatsApp (32%) and Viber (20%). However, 18% exchange messages through the VKontakte social network, while another 19% still prefer sending text messages on their cell phones.
The nationwide telephone poll, involving 2,400 people, was conducted in December 2017. The margin of error does not exceed 2% at the 95% confidence level.