If you market to teens, you need to be marketing on social media. This will not come as a surprise to anyone, but a new Pew Research Center survey taken earlier this fall confirms what we all know: Teens are “as digitally connected as ever.” The survey shows that most teens use social media, and almost half say they’re “almost constantly” online.
Teen’s Fave Social Sites
Pew Research shows:
- YouTube is the most popular social platform, with 90% of teens using it, a slight decrease from 2022 (95%).
- About 60% of teens use TikTok and 55% are Snapshot users.
- Teens are less enthralled with Facebook and Twitter (yes, I know it’s now called X). In 2014-15, 71% of teens used Facebook—today only 32% do. Teen Twitter usage is down from 33% in 2014 to 17% today.
- Among the smaller sites, WhatsApp usage is up to 23%, a 6% increase since 2022. Reddit usage is holding steady at 14%, and only 6% of teens use Threads.
Frequency of Teen Visits to Social Platforms
Pew’s survey asked about teen uses of YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.
As I said above, YouTube is the most popular social site, with 73% of teens saying they go on the site every day. And 15% say they use YouTube “almost constantly.”
About 60% are daily users of TikTok, including 16% who use it “almost constantly.”
Instagram and Snapchat attract about half of teenagers every day, with 12% using Instagram “almost constantly.”
Only 20% of teens report daily usage of Facebook.
Gender Differences
More teenage girls (19%) than boys (13%) are likelier to use TikTok almost constantly, while 19% of teen boys are almost constant users of YouTube, compared to 11% of girls.
There are essentially no gender differences in the almost constant usage of Snapchat (teen boys—13% and girls—12% and no difference at all in the almost constant usage of Instagram and Facebook.
Does Teen Usage of Social Media Vary by Age?
Yes, it does. Older teens are more frequent users of social media. The survey shows that 15-to-17-year-olds are more likely to use Instagram (72% vs. 43%) or Snapchat (63% vs. 44%) than 13-to-14-year-olds.
YouTube usage is nearly evenly split between older teens (92%) and younger ones (87%).
Rieva Lesonsky is President of Small Business Currents, LLC, a content company focusing on small businesses and entrepreneurship. While you can still find her on Twitter @Rieva, you can also reach her @Rieva.bsky.social and LinkedIn. Or email her at Rieva@SmallBusinessCurrents.com.
Using social media picture by CarlosBarquero/Shutterstock