(JNS) Research reveals the evolution of teens’ social-media preferences since 2014, showing declines in older platforms and greater popularity among video and image-centric networks.
Pew released the results of a survey on Thursday of U.S. teens aged 13 through 17, conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10.
YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat dominated the list with 90%, 63%, 61% and 55% of teens surveyed, respectively, reporting using each platform.
Facebook and X have shown large drops in popularity over the last decade, according to Pew’s research. In 2014, 71% of teens said they used Facebook. That number has fallen to 32% among today’s respondents. Likewise, X usage tumbled from 33% in 2014 (previously, Twitter) to 17% in 2024.
One platform that has seen recent growth is WhatsApp. While 17% of teens reported using it in 2022, today the number has increased to 23%. It is one of the preferred messaging programs used by Israelis as well.
Most platforms saw little partisan differences between Republican and Democratic teens with the exception of TikTok, in which 73% of Democratic teens versus 52% of Republican teens participated.
Some of the youth using these platforms report “almost constant” use. Of the 73% who use YouTube daily, 15% describe an “almost constant” engagement with the site’s videos. Likewise, of the approximately 60% of respondents who say they use TikTok daily, 16% report constant use.
“It’s alarming but not surprising that so many teens are on social media ‘almost constantly,’” Daniel Kelley, director of strategy and operations, and acting head of the ADL Center for Technology and Society, told JNS.
Across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, Pew says one-third of teens admit to almost constant use.
Kelley explained that “the main issue isn’t necessarily which platform someone is using, it’s that the algorithms keep feeding toxic content to the young people who spend the most time in these spaces, just to keep engagement up, and therefore causing a vicious cycle that leads to more and more hateful content.”
