Facebook users who use the site multiple times a day report more categories listed on their ad preferences % of Facebook users who say categ ories are listed on their Facebook ad preferences page Frequency of using Facebook
In a Pew Research Center survey conducted Sept. 4-Oct. 1, 2018, Facebook users were directed to open and review their own ad preference page in order to complete the survey. That survey found that roughly nine-in-ten U.S. adults who use Facebook reported that they had information compiled about them on their Facebook ad preferences page. But a new analysis of this data finds that how Facebook categorizes these users, when it comes to the number of categories and their accuracy, varies by how often someone uses the platform.
Frequent Facebook use – as well as having an account for a longer period of time – generally results in more ad categories. Nearly four-in-ten Facebook users (37%) who saw categories listed on their ad preferences page found 21 or more categories, whereas 30% found one to nine categories. When accounting for how often they use the site, some 44% of Facebook users who said they use the site several times a day reported finding 21 or more categories listed on the ad preferences page, compared with 34% of those who use the site once a day and 20% of those who said they use the site less often.
There are also differences when it comes to how long a user has been on Facebook. The longer a person has had an account on the platform, the more categories Facebook lists for them. About half of users with Facebook accounts that were more than a decade old (52%) at the time of the survey reported finding 21 or more categories listed on their ad preferences page. In comparison, 36% of accounts 5 to 10 years old and 27% of accounts less than 5 years old had more than 20 categories listed. About a third of accounts less than a decade old had fewer than 10 categories listed on the ad preferences page, whereas only 18% of accounts over a decade old had fewer than 10 categories listed.
Facebook users who use the site multiple times a day  | report more categories listed on their ad preferences  | % of Facebook users who say  | categ ories are listed on their Facebook ad  | preferences page  | 10 to 20  | 21 or more  | 1 to 9  | Facebook users  | 30  | 31  | 38  | Frequency of using Facebook  | Several times a day  | 27  | 27  | 44  | About once a day  | 29  | 34  | 34  | Less often  | 40  | 39  | 20  | Age of Facebook account  | 37  | Less than 5 years  | 31  | 27  | 32  | 36  | 5 to 10 years  | 31  | More than 10 years  | 18  | 30  | 52  | Notes: Facebook users who saw no categories were excluded from ana lysis. Those who did  | not give an answer are not shown.  | Source: Survey of U.S. adults conducted Sept. 4-Oct. 1, 2018.  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 