Gallup

A clear majority of Americans say social media have no effect at all on their purchasing decisions. Although many companies run aggressive marketing campaigns on social media, 62% in the US say Facebook and Twitter, among other sites, do not have any influence on their decisions to purchase products.

Despite tremendous numbers of Americans using social media institutions such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter, only 5% say social media have "a great deal of influence" on their purchasing decisions, while another 30% say these channels have "some influence." These data, from Gallup's new State of the American Consumer report, are based on Americans' self-reported estimates of how much social media campaigns affect their purchasing decisions.

While social media may have more influence than some Americans realize or will admit, these data show that relatively few consumers consciously take into account what they learn from social media when making purchases.

US companies spent a combined $5.1 billion on social media advertising in 2013, and they obviously believe that this presents them with a return on investment. However, a solid majority of American adults say that social media have no influence at all on their purchasing decisions -- suggesting that the advertising may be reaching smaller segments of the market, or that the influence on consumers is indirect or goes unnoticed.

Americans' faith in each of three major news media platforms -- television news, newspapers, and news on the Internet -- is at or tied with record lows in Gallup's long-standing confidence in institutions trend.

This continues a decades-long decline in the share of Americans saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers or TV news, while trust in Internet news remains low since the one prior measure in 1999.

These results are from a Gallup poll conducted June 5-8.The three major sources of news ranked in the bottom third of 17 different US institutions measured in the poll.

Confidence in newspapers has declined by more than half since its 1979 peak of 51%, while TV news has seen confidence ebb from its high of 46% in 1993, the first year that Gallup asked this question. Gallup's only previous measure of Internet news was in 1999, when confidence was 21%, little different from today.

The field of news media has changed dramatically since Gallup first began measuring the confidence the public held in newspapers or TV news decades ago. Amid this rapid change, Americans hold all news media platforms in low confidence. How these platforms can restore confidence with the American public is not clear, especially as editorial standards change and most outlets lack the broad reach once available to major newspapers and broadcasters.

Recent incidents such as Target's security breach, the Heartbleed bug, and eBay's systems hack have called attention to how much consumers trust the businesses they patronize to keep their personal information safe.

That trust currently appears to be hard to come by. Just 21% of Americans have "a lot of trust" in the businesses or companies they regularly interact with to keep their personal information secure.

In addition to low trust in companies' abilities to keep their data secure, Americans report decreasing trust in companies in general. Thirty-seven percent say their general level of trust in the businesses and companies they regularly do business with has declined either a little or a lot over the past year.

Nonetheless, consumers trust banks to protect their personal data at levels considerably higher than their overall confidence in the institutions themselves. The key differentiator here may be the protection of personal information.

While, in general, the industry has suffered a negative reputation since the 2008 financial crisis, banks and credit card companies are potentially held to specific legal parameters regarding the protection of personal information. This higher standard could influence the amount of trust consumers say they have in the security of their sensitive data with financial institutions compared with other industries.

US workers who e-mail for work and who spend more hours working remotely outside of normal working hours are more likely to experience a substantial amount of stress on any given day than workers who do not exhibit these behaviors.

Nearly half of workers who "frequently" email for work outside of normal working hours report experiencing stress "a lot of the day yesterday," compared with the 36% experiencing stress who never email for work.

Although most Americans now own mobile communication devices or otherwise have access to the Internet, no more than 23% have used them for a variety of political interactions.

These results suggest that the potential use of mobile communication for connecting voters and potential voters to politics has yet to be fully realized.

The poll finds that about seven in 10 Americans use either a smartphone or a tablet, and that overall 83% are connected to the Internet through a phone, tablet, or personal computer. Between 20% and 23% of those interviewed report receiving electronic communication from political interest groups, using social media to share political opinions posted by someone else, receiving electronic requests to contact elected representatives on behalf of a cause, or receiving direct electronic communications from elected officials or from political parties. Slightly fewer, 16%, say they post their own political opinions directly on social media. Less than 10% say they have received instant communication about an incipient or ongoing political rally or political protest or made a monetary donation using a smartphone or tablet.

Other findings are that younger Americans are more likely to be politically connected via social media and that Republicans are slightly more likely to use mobile devices.