The trend is most common among the younger generations, with 24% of 25-34 year-olds admitting that posting food snaps online often or every time they went out had become a habit.
The ‘Food for Thought’ study revealed that a restaurant’s social media presence is ‘more important than ever’.
Kirsty Morris, director at Barclaycard Payment Solutions, said: “Simply being active on social media is no longer enough for restaurateurs, they also need to consider the quality of their content to avoid missing out on potential customers.
“Not only are diners using social as a research tool to decide where to eat, they are also integrating it into every part of their experience.
“This is particularly true of younger audiences; whether it’s taking pictures of meals, checking reviews or wanting to book directly from restaurants’ Instagram or Facebook accounts, there’s clearly a new social order for eating out.”
The top reasons 25 to 34-year olds give for filling social feeds with food are: to recommend a restaurant to their friends and followers (42 per cent), and to impress others by showing off the experience they’ve enjoyed (26 per cent).
One in five (22%) of diners check both an online menu and social media account before they choose to visit, with 15% saying that they rule out visiting a place if it doesn’t offer an online menu or social media channels.
But that number rises to a third (33%) for 18-24 year-olds.
The report claims that ‘displaying appetising visuals of meals online is the ingredient to social success in today’s Instagram-first culture.
British diners are using social accounts to read reviews (23%), to look at the appearance of dishes (21%), to consider what they might order in advance (18%) and to see how well the food is presented (11%).
In addition to diners using social media to decide where to eat, 28% also indicated that they wanted to be able to book a restaurant via its social channels.