Online Social Networks Favored by Gay, Lesbian, and Bi Population

The percentage of online gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals using social media outweigh their heterosexual counterparts. That’s according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications.

About 27 percent of the gay, lesbian, and bi population visits YouTube for an hour or less each week, compared to 22 percent of the heterosexual population. Craigslist.com is visited by 20 percent of the gay, lesbian, and bisexuals, while 13 percent of heterosexuals frequent the site for an hour or less.

Time spent on social networking sites also skews heavier among the gay, lesbian and bisexual community. Friendster accounts for 11 percent of time spent online for gay, lesbian, and bisexual Internet users, versus 4 percent of heterosexual users. MySpace mirrors the trend (33 percent versus 28 percent). Time spent on Facebook is an even 11 percent for both groups.

Time Spent Per Week Visiting Social networks, November 13-20, 2006
	Total (%)	GLB (%)	Heterosexual (%)
Friendster	5	11	4
MySpace	27	33	28
Facebook	11	11	11
Note: Total includes all heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender respondents. Total also includes an over-sample of gay/lesbian respondents.
Source: Harris Interactive, January 2007

Seventy-five percent of the gay, lesbian and bi-l community classify as heavy Internet users, spending between eight and 168 hours online. Fifty-nine percent of heterosexual adults classify as heavy users of the Internet.

Blogs are another category where the gay, lesbian and bisexual community consumes more online media. The top categories include personal blogs (GLB 24 percent; heterosexual 12 percent); news blogs (19 percent; 9 percent); political blogs (13 percent; 8 percent); Current issue blogs (13 percent; 8 percent); and entertainment blogs (9 percent; 6 percent). About 36 percent of the gay, lesbian and bi community read blogs daily, compared to 19 percent of the heterosexual population.

Types of Blogs Visited, November 13-20, 2006
	Total (%)	GLB (%)	Heterosexual (%)
Personal blogs	12	24	12
News blogs	9	19	9
Political blogs	8	13	8
Current issues blogs	7	13	7
Entertainment blogs	7	9	6
Sports blogs	5	8	5
Music blogs	4	6	4
Pop culture blogs	3	6	3
Book blogs	2	5	2
Gay and lesbian blogs	1	4	*
Other	3	4	3
I do not read blogs	73	60	74
Notes: 1. “*” indicates less than 0.5%. 2. This is a multiple-response question. 3. Total includes all heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender respondents. Total also includes an over-sample of gay/lesbian respondents.
Source: Harris Interactive, January 2007

The data are part of an online study of 2,541 adults over 18. Of the respondents, 2,205 indicated they are heterosexual; 267 self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Figures for age, sex, race, education, region, income, and amount of time spent were weighted where necessary to scale to proportions with the online adult population. Results for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual sample were weighted separately based on profiles of the gay, lesbian and bisexual online populations Harris Interactive has compiled through previous surveys.