A smaller share of 13- to 14-year-olds (48%) think this would be difficult.īeyond just online platforms, the new survey finds that the vast majority of teens have access to digital devices, such as smartphones (95%), desktop or laptop computers (90%) and gaming consoles (80%). About six-in-ten teens ages 15 to 17 (58%) say giving up social media would be at least somewhat difficult to do. Older teens also say they would have difficulty giving up social media. Conversely, a quarter of teen boys say giving up social media would be very easy, while 15% of teen girls say the same. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to express it would be difficult to give up social media (58% vs. Just 8% of teens think they spend too little time on these platforms.Īsked about the idea of giving up social media, 54% of teens say it would be at least somewhat hard to give it up, while 46% say it would be at least somewhat easy. teens (55%) say they spend about the right amount of time on these apps and sites, while about a third of teens (36%) say they spend too much time on social media. When reflecting on the amount of time they spend on social media generally, a majority of U.S. When looking at teens overall, 19% say they use YouTube almost constantly, 16% say this about TikTok, and 15% about Snapchat. A quarter of teens who use Snapchat or TikTok say they use these apps almost constantly, and a fifth of teen YouTube users say the same. Fully 35% of teens say they are using at least one of them “almost constantly.” Teen TikTok and Snapchat users are particularly engaged with these platforms, followed by teen YouTube users in close pursuit. This study also explores the frequency with which teens are on each of the top five online platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. In addition, higher shares of Black and Hispanic teens report using TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp compared with White teens. For example, teen boys are more likely than teen girls to say they use YouTube, Twitch and Reddit, whereas teen girls are more likely than teen boys to use TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.

There are some notable demographic differences in teens’ social media choices. And two of the platforms the Center tracked in the earlier survey – Vine and Google+ – no longer exist. Conversely, Twitter and Tumblr saw declining shares of teens who report using their platforms. Growing shares of teens say they are using Instagram and Snapchat since then. 1Ĭhanges in the social media landscape since 2014-15 extend beyond TikTok’s rise and Facebook’s fall. After those platforms come Facebook with 32% and smaller shares who use Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr. TikTok is next on the list of platforms that were asked about in this survey (67%), followed by Instagram and Snapchat, which are both used by about six-in-ten teens. YouTube tops the 2022 teen online landscape among the platforms covered in the Center’s new survey, as it is used by 95% of teens. Meanwhile, the share of teens who say they use Facebook, a dominant social media platform among teens in the Center’s 2014-15 survey, has plummeted from 71% then to 32% today. Some 67% of teens say they ever use TikTok, with 16% of all teens saying they use it almost constantly. A new Pew Research Center survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds TikTok has rocketed in popularity since its North American debut several years ago and now is a top social media platform for teens among the platforms covered in this survey. The landscape of social media is ever-changing, especially among teens who often are on the leading edge of this space. Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology. The survey was fielded by the GfK Group on its KnowledgePanel, which was later acquired by Ipsos. The trend data in this report comes from a Center survey on the same topic conducted from Sept. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents by age, gender, race, ethnicity, household income and other categories. The survey is weighted to be representative of U.S. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents who were a part of its KnowledgePanel, a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, which is an independent committee of experts that specializes in helping to protect the rights of research participants. The survey was conducted online by Ipsos from April 14 to May 4, 2022.

For this analysis, we surveyed 1,316 U.S. Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand teens’ use of digital devices, social media and other online platforms.

Trends in social media infographic