Facebook Is Still Hemorrhaging Teen Users

It’s been years since Facebook final topped the teenager social media charts, but by some means the platform remains to be dropping floor with younger individuals. The social media website is now utilized by lower than a 3rd of U.S. youngsters, in keeping with new survey data from the Pew Research Center, launched Wednesday. That’s down from 71% of teenagers in 2014-2015 and 51% in 2018.

(Among adults, however, 2021 Pew data advised that Facebook stays a social media stronghold, retaining about 69% of U.S. adults.)

However, throughout age teams, the obvious large tech winner is YouTube. The video website emerged victorious amongst all ten of the platforms included in the newest teen survey, and 95% of U.S. youth reported that they use YouTube (up from 85% in 2018). It was the highest used platform amongst adults in 2021 too.

When it involves extra historically “social media”-specific websites and apps, the brand new report additional confirmed that TikTok has shortly change into the reining teen-champ. 67% of polled youngsters reported utilizing the platform, and 16% say they’re on TikTok “almost constantly.” Instagram and Snapchat adopted shut behind, with 62% and 59% p.c of teenagers responding that they use these platforms respectively.

Those Insta and Snap percentages are up from the 2014-2015 survey (51% and 41% respectively), however notably down in contrast with the 2018 knowledge. Four years in the past, Pew reported that 72% of polled youngsters mentioned they use Instagram and 69% say they use Snapchat. One large caveat: in the newest Pew research, the Research Center famous that the 2018 survey strategies differed and that “direct comparisons cannot be made across the two surveys due to differences in the ways the surveys were conducted.”

Regardless, comparatively few youngsters appear to be on the opposite on-line platforms included within the Pew analysis: Twitter (23%), Twitch (20%), WhatsApp (17%), Reddit (14%), and Tumblr (simply 5%). And teen utilization numbers had been down throughout all these platforms between 2022 and 2014-2015. Fun reality: Pew famous that “two of the platforms the Center tracked in the earlier [2014-2015] survey – Vine and Google+ – no longer exist.”

In addition to cataloging Facebook’s ongoing failure to succeed in the youth, and the precise websites that teenagers do like, the Pew report famous different, broader traits in youth web utilization. For occasion, that 97% of teenagers reported utilizing the web each day, and that just about half mentioned they’re on-line “almost constantly.” These values are each up from earlier Pew reviews. More than a 3rd of all youngsters mentioned they’re on one the highest 5 on-line platforms “almost constantly.”

The knowledge additionally indicated variations in web and social media utilization throughout gender, race, and earnings ranges. Teen boys, for instance, are apparently extra more likely to report utilizing YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit (all in style for players)—whereas women extra generally mentioned they’re on TikTok, Insta, and Snap. Black and Hispanic teenagers reported being on the web extra incessantly than their white counterparts. And “constant” web utilization was mostly reported by teenagers dwelling in households with annual incomes of $30,000-$75,999.

So, how do youngsters really feel about all that point spent on-line? More than half of the kids who reported close to fixed web utilization additionally mentioned they thought they had been spending an excessive amount of time on social media. And greater than half of teenagers additionally mentioned that it could be both onerous or very onerous to surrender social media totally.

Social media firms have been struggling lately, releasing lower than stellar quarterly monetary reviews and saying layoffs amid an obvious tech downturn. But if the kids are the longer term, then possibly these web behemoths don’t have that a lot to fret about in spite of everything. The specifics of platform recognition have shifted over time, however one factor stays constant: the kids are hooked on social media and even when they’d like to go away, they’re not.