Another study on teen social media use confirms that TikTok is currently the most popular platform among young people, while Facebook’s relevance in general continues to decline.
According to the most recent data from Pew Research, which polled more than 1,300 US teenagers and their parents between April and May of this year to gain more knowledge about which platforms young audiences are primarily interested in using and how much time they spend in each app, this is the case.
“[The survey] of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds TikTok is now a top social media platform for teens, with some 67% of teens saying they ever use TikTok, and 16% of all teens saying they use it almost constantly. Meanwhile, the share of teens who say they use Facebook, a dominant social media platform among teens in the Center’s 2014-15 survey, has plummeted from 71% then to 32% today.”
-Pew Research
Which is the most popular social media app?
This graph shows that YouTube continues to be the most popular app among youths, with 95% of them consistently using it. But now that Facebook’s popularity among teenagers has declined, TikTok is clearly in second place.
Because of recent losses in younger audiences on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s own internal research, the company has increased its attention on creating solutions exclusively for this demographic. Because of this, Reels and Stories are now receiving more attention. This has led to a rise in Reels usage, but the firm may have gone far with some features, which it recently cut back in reaction to negative customer feedback.
These statistics demonstrate the extent of the struggle that Meta currently faces in maintaining Facebook’s relevance as younger users continue to abandon the app in large numbers. There is no doubt that TikTok is placing new kinds of pressure on Meta’s development teams.
Because younger viewers are driving the next big trends and developments, while older users will undoubtedly keep Facebook alive. And while Facebook may not be a major priority for Meta in this regard, it does need the youth to embrace its metaverse effort in order to maximize adoption and resonance.
Facebook usage continues to drop
However, Twitter is also near the bottom of this graph, and it does appear that these “traditional” social media platforms are losing favor with younger audiences as video platforms attract more users and fundamentally alter user attention spans and routine behaviors.
The rapid-fire nature of media consumption in the app is completely changing expectations and approaches, which makes other, more traditional content formats obsolete in some ways. This explains why we now see so much replication between apps. It’s not just that kids are spending more time on TikTok.
In other words, because TikTok is changing how users perceive what content should be, its popularity is practically forcing other apps to catch up. In other words, it’s probably less of a purposeful decision to replicate TikTok and other successful applications as it is a required transition to stay up with shifting user patterns. Those who don’t attempt to adapt in step with these trends will eventually lose out.
According to Pew’s statistics, female users are more allied with TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, whilst male adolescent users are more allied with Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube.
Social media use by gender and age ranges
The research highlights the crucial, connecting role that social media now plays in our modern interactive process and, conversely, why it’s now such a potent medium for promotion and connection. That alone is probably enough for alarm.
These are some crucial demographic data points for your marketing planning, which could guide your holiday campaigns and test designs to determine their effectiveness. It’s an intriguing look at the market right now and how young people use various social media platforms. Again, this might be really helpful for your strategy, and if you want to connect with young people, you should absolutely be aware of these statistics.
