Facebook vs. Twitter: Who's Winning the War for Millennials?

While many more millennials use Facebook than Twitter, Twitter’s young user base has continued to grow, while Facebook’s market share declined a bit this year.

According to a poll from the Harvard University Institute of Politics, 79% of millennials — that’s 18- to 29-year-olds — were on Facebook as of November, down from 83% in April. Twitter users, on the other hand, increased 2 percentage points in the same period to include 35% of millennials. The change in use of Google+ was not outlined in the survey report, but 37% of respondents said they have an account on the social network. All other social networks had a lower market share than Twitter.

Despite the high levels of social media presence, this age group was more likely than not to say they disagree with the statement “I have control over my personal technology privacy” (34% either strongly or somewhat disagreed, 32% strongly or somewhat agreed, 29% neither agreed nor disagreed and 5% declined to answer).

This data was drawn from 2,089 interviews with 18- to 29-year-olds from Oct. 30 to Nov. 11, and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Taking control over your digital footprint is key to preventing identity theft, which can happen when a thief pieces together bits of personal identifying information from social media sites to crack passwords, hack your email and access your financial accounts.

To avoid identity theft, it’s important to monitor your credit, which you can do for free using the Credit Report Card — a tool that updates your credit scores every month. If you see a major change in your scores, it may be a sign that your identity has been compromised.

Image: Wavebreak Media