A fresh look at Teens and Social Media – the latest trends

A new Pew Research Center report offers insight into the social media habits of teens and helps explain why Facebook and Instagram are ignoring the pleas of creators upset with a flood of recent changes

The study begins with this stark overview:

“TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens, while the share of teens who use Facebook has fallen sharply.”

The share of teens 13 – 17 who say they use Facebook has plummeted from 71% in 2015 to 32% today.

YouTube is still the top online platform overall with teens, 95% of whom say that they regularly use the platform, and TikTok is second at 67%. Instagram and Snapchat are next at 60% each. Then it’s Facebook at 32% with smaller shares for Twitter (23%), Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit, and Tumblr.

Teen boys are more likely to use YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit, and teen girls are more likely to spend time on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Overall, more Black and Hispanic teens use TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp than White teens.

Time Spent

35% of teens say that they are using YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook “almost constantly”.

Overall a majority of U.S. teens (55%) say they spend the right amount of time on these apps, while (36%) say they spend too much time on social media. Just 8% of teens think they spend too little time on these platforms.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.