5% of all respondents "typically" put a filter on their pictures before posting. However, there's a significant but unsurprising generational difference: while 20% of 18-34 year-olds typically use a filter, that number drops significantly with older age groups.

Do you typically use a filter on your social media posts? Contribute to CivicScience’s ongoing poll right here.

Data Source: CivicScience InsightStore

Visualization: Infogram

Posted by CivicScienceInsights

18 comments

  1. No, never. I’ve never really understood the point of it. Felt more authentic and realistic to not put a filter on it.

    For context, I am 28 and male.

  2. Does manually editing photos for brightness, color saturation, etc. count as “a filter”? Or am I old for even knowing this capability exists

  3. 18-34 is way too wide of a demo bracket for representing internet behavior. IMO it should be separated into 18-24 and 25-34 or something.

  4. The fact that this includes people who don’t post photos and don’t use social media makes the percentage a little deceptive. It would be more instructive to say that 15% of all people who post photos of themselves online regularly use filters; 27% of people 18-34.

  5. Don’t phones have auto editing of the photos to make them look better already?

    A lot of the times it’s not needed anymore

  6. Anecdotally, the older people are lying LOL. I feel like so many boomers post overly-filtered photos of themselves. It certainly feels like more than the ~5% that this data shows! I think it’s fair to say that every age group is under-reporting their use of filters, but especially the 55+ cohort

  7. are we talking about filters that boost HDR and the like? Or are we talking about the so-called “creative” filters?

  8. I feel like a missing element here is the subject of those photos.

    Yes, I am Gen X and I typically filter my social media photos.

    But those photos are all cats and flowers (with the location data stripped off).

  9. There isn’t a color for “I post pictures, but I don’t ever apply a filter” What a stupid chart to leave out a very important demographic. In fact, without this, the chart is meaningless.

    Why even have a “I’m not on social media” when discussing if you apply a filter to the pictures you post. Particularly if you aren’t going to include what I specified above.

    People are so stupid in the way they digest data.

  11. Wild that supposedly 10-12% of people in my demographic aren’t on social media. I gotta say, I expected it to be a lot lower than that. People look at me like I’m a psychopath when I tell them I don’t have FB/Snapchat/Instagram. Like I’m the first person they’ve ever heard say that.

  12. Heavy filter use feels like a fad that has passed, but I follow actual people I know instead of influencers and other garbage.

  13. 59% of 55+ peeps not posting pictures to social media? Haha facebook begs to differ

  14. No, no filter and I tend to not use makeup so everyone is already used to what I actually look like.

  15. That was a weird (though pleasantly short, at least) survey. So what’s the correlation between what home improvement projects people have planned and whether they use filters?

  16. Truthfully almost everyone is using a filter for what they post your phone is doing it automatically after you take a picture.

    Now adding one after that could potentially be seen as a different action but I’ll bet you 95% of posted pictures are “filtered”

  17. It’s a sad day when you realize your parents are in the 55+ category lol

  18. Everyone does most cameras these days apply an auto filter when you are taking pictures.

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