TikTok has emerged as a top social media platform for US teens, according to a new Pew Research Centre survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17.
Some 67% of teens say they use TikTok, with 16% of all teens saying they use it almost constantly.
Of the online platforms measured, YouTube stands out as the most common platform used by teens, with 95% of US teens saying they ever use this site or app. Majorities also say they use Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%).
Meanwhile, the share of teens who say they use Facebook, a dominant social media platform among teens in the Centre’s 2014-15 survey, has plummeted from 71% then to 32% today.
The new report, based on a survey of 1,316 U.S. teens conducted online from 14 April to 4 May 2022, using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, finds that changes in the teen social media landscape since 2014-15 extend beyond TikTok’s rise and Facebook’s fall.
Instagram and Snapchat use has grown since 2014-15, when roughly half of teens said they used Instagram (52%) and about four-in-ten said they used Snapchat (41%).
Conversely, the share of teens using Twitter and Tumblr declined in this same period. Some 23% of teens now say they ever use Twitter, compared with 33% in 2014-15. And while 14% of teens in 2014-15 reported using Tumblr, just 5% of teens today say they use this platform.
There are also some notable demographic differences in teens’ social media choices. 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.
In addition, Black teens stand out for being most likely to use TikTok among the racial and ethnic groups covered in this report, followed by Hispanic teens and then White teens. Hispanic teens are more likely than their peers to use WhatsApp. Black and Hispanic teens are both more likely than White teens to say they ever use Instagram or Twitter.
Older teens are more likely than younger teens to say they use each of the online platforms asked about except for YouTube and WhatsApp. Instagram is an especially notable example of the age gap: 73% of teens ages 15 to 17 say they ever use Instagram, compared with 45% of teens ages 13 to 14 who say the same (a 28 percentage point gap).
When it comes to the frequency that teens use the five major platforms the survey looked at – YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook – 35% of teens say they are using at least one of them “almost constantly”. About three-quarters of teens visit YouTube at least daily, including 19% who report using the site or app almost constantly. A majority of teens (58%) visit TikTok daily, while about half say the same for Snapchat (51%) and Instagram (50%). Comparatively, just 19% of teens say they visit Facebook daily.
Beyond 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%). And the study shows there has been an uptick in daily teen internet users, from 92% in 2014-15 to 97% today.
In addition, the share of teens who say they are online almost constantly has roughly doubled since 2014-15 (46% now and 24% then).
Other key findings include:
* 54% of teens say it would be hard to give up social media. Teen girls are slightly more likely than teen boys to say it would be at least somewhat difficult to give up social media (58% vs. 49%). When reflecting on the amount of time they spend on social media generally, a slight majority of U.S. 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. Just 8% of teens think they spend too little time on these platforms.
* While nearly half of all teens say they use the internet “almost constantly,” there are notable differences by race and ethnicity or age in the shares of teens who say this. Black and Hispanic teens stand out for being on the internet more frequently than White teens, with 56% of Black teens and 55% of Hispanic teens saying they are online almost constantly and 37% of White teens saying the same. Older teens are also more likely to be online almost constantly, with 52% of 15- to 17-year-olds saying they use the internet almost constantly, while 36% of 13- to 14-year-olds say the same.
* Since 2014-15, there has been a 22 percentage point rise in the share of teens who report having access to a smartphone (95% now and 73% then). While teens’ access to smartphones has increased over roughly the past eight years, their access to other digital technologies, such as desktop or laptop computers or gaming consoles, has remained statistically unchanged.
* Access to computers and gaming consoles differs by teens’ household income. US teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually are 12 points more likely to have access to gaming consoles and 15 points more likely to have access to a desktop or laptop computer than teens from households with incomes under $30 000. While 72% of all US teens say they have access to a smartphone, a computer and a gaming console at home, more affluent teens are particularly likely to have access to all three devices