• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, January 13, 2017

Social-media adoption continues to increase in the United States, albeit at a slower rate than previously.

That's due mostly to strong growth among older adults, according to the latest data from Pew Research Center. In fact, the Pew survey suggests that social-media usage among younger adults is leveling off — or maybe even decreasing — as their elders sign on in growing numbers.

From July 2015 to November 2016, when the most recent survey was completed, Pew found the percentage of all Americans using at least one social-media site increased from 65% to 69%. However, as in previous surveys, this growth wasn’t even distributed across age groups.

Over this period, the proportion of Americans ages 50-64 who use at least one social-media site jumped from 51% to 64%, while the proportion of those ages 30-49 edged up from 77% to 80%.

Interestingly, the proportion of Americans ages 18-29 who use at least one social site actually decreased slightly, from 90% to 86%, over the same period.

The latter decrease is relatively small and could be attributed to a number of temporary or external factors.

Either way, it seems to suggest that social-media adoption has finally reached saturation levels among younger users, with a residual group of around one in 10 people who are “holdouts,” for whatever reason.

On that note, the younger holdouts are unlikely to be limited by factors such as Internet access, judging by related data from Pew covering broadband and smartphone penetration.

According to Pew, 92% of Americans ages 18-29 owned a smartphone in November 2016, while 99% had access to broadband Internet, including 77% with access at home.

Among the 18-29 age group, the proportions rise to 88% for Facebook, 59% for Instagram, 36% for Twitter, 36% for Pinterest, and 34% for LinkedIn.