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California is #42

As some of you already know, I like to dig into the numbers. Not financials and budgets per se, but demographics and adoption trends. For firstly a marketeers’ task is to persuade the audience of inevitabilities; not that the world can be different, but it will be. That success is inevitable despite insurmountable odds. It is simply the epitome of selling hope in a bottle.

One cannot ignore the ever growing adoption of Facebook, especially in the teen audience. When will it’s success become “inevitable?”

I’ve been following the age distribution of Facebook for the past few years and in particular the teen crown; given I have two kids in that demographic. One question that did intrigue me was geographic differences: what state have the highest per capita adoption of Facebook among? I did some digging and the numbers are surprising.

So which states comprise the top 10 in per capita usage of Facebook by teens? High-tech hotbeds like California, Texas, North Carolina, Washington or Virginia? No, the highest rank of these states is Virginia at #18.

The top ten in order are: District of Columbia, South Dakota, Connecticut, Missouri, Kansas, Massachusetts, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New Jersey. The list above is Virginia (#18), North Carolina (#25), Texas (#37), Washington (#39) and California (#42).

Think things are weird? Per capita, Kansas has nearly three times more teens on Facebook compared to California. Think that’s a rural thing? Not so. Massachusetts boasts similar numbers compared to California.

The chart shows off the results. Darker colors indicate highest adoption, lighter colors lower. Enjoy. If you’d like the spredsheet with the numbers, leave a comment

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