Teens, social media and technology 2024

Amid national concerns about technology’s impact on youth, nearly half of American teenagers say they’re online almost constantly, according to a new Pew Research Center report. 

YouTube tops the list of the online platforms we asked about in our survey. Nine-in-ten teens report using the site, slightly down from 95% in 2022.

TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat also remain widely used among teens. Roughly six-in-ten teens say they use TikTok and Instagram, and 55% say the same for Snapchat.

The new report, based on a survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 that was conducted Sept. 18-Oct. 10, 2024, through Ipsos, finds that Facebook and X use have steeply declined over the past decade. Today, 32% of teens say they use Facebook, down from 71% in 2014-15, though the share of teens who use the site has remained stable in recent years. And 17% of teens say they use X (formerly Twitter) — about half the share who said this a decade ago (33%), and down from 23% in 2022.  

Meanwhile, roughly one-quarter of teens (23%) say they use WhatsApp, up 6 percentage points since 2022, and 14% of teens use Reddit. We also asked about Threads, launched by parent company Meta in 2023, for the first time this year; only 6% of teens report using it.

How often do teens go online and visit these platforms?

Overall, 73% of teens say they go on YouTube daily, making YouTube the most widely used and most visited platform we asked about. This share includes 15% who describe their use as “almost constant.” About six-in-ten visit TikTok daily, including 16% who report being on it almost constantly. Roughly half of teens say they go on Instagram or Snapchat every day, including about one-in-ten who say they’re on each of these platforms almost constantly. The share of teens who say they use Instagram almost constantly has increased slightly, from 8% in 2023 to 12% today. Meanwhile, relatively few teens report using Facebook daily (20%). 

Across all five platforms, one-third of teens use at least one of these sites almost constantly. These findings are largely similar to what we’ve found the past two years.

We also asked teens about how often they go online in general and the types of devices they have access to at home. Nearly half of teens say they are online almost constantly, up from 24% a decade ago. This share has stayed consistent over the past few years. Overall, nearly all teens — 96% — report using the internet daily.

Device usage: Smartphones, computers, gaming consoles and tablets

Large shares of teens have or have access to a smartphone (95%), desktop or laptop computer (88%), gaming console (83%), or tablet computer (70%) at home. 

However, when it comes to home computers and tablets, access remains less common for teens in lower-income households. For example, 93% of teens living in households whose annual income is $75,000 or more have access to a home computer. That share falls to about eight-in-ten among those whose annual household income is $30,000 to $74,999 (81%) or less than $30,000 (78%).

Additional key findings about demographic differences include:

Gender differences:

• Instagram and TikTok are used more widely by teen girls than teen boys: 66% of girls say they use TikTok, compared with 59% of boys. Instagram use follows a similar pattern (66% vs. 56%). On the other hand, boys are more likely than girls to say they use YouTube (93% vs. 87%). 
• As in previous surveys, teen girls are also more likely than boys to say they use TikTok almost constantly (19% vs. 13%). Inversely, teen boys are more likely than girls to use YouTube this often (19% vs. 11%). 

Racial and ethnic differences:

• Among teens, a larger share of those who are Black (79%) or Hispanic (74%) than White (54%) say they use TikTok. Black and Hispanic teens also stand out compared with White teens in their use of Instagram and X. And Hispanic teens are more likely than Black or White teens to say they use WhatsApp. 

There are also differences when it comes to frequency of use for some platforms. Roughly one-quarter of Black (28%) or Hispanic (25%) teens say they visit TikTok almost constantly. This share drops to 8% among White teens. Black and Hispanic teens are also more likely than White teens to say they almost constantly use YouTube or Instagram. 

These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center analysis based on a survey of 1,392 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted Sept. 18-Oct.10, 2024 through Ipsos' KnowledgePanel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

To read the report, click here: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/

Methodology: https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-tech-methodology/

Survey topline: https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/PI_2024.12.12_Teens-Social-Media-Tech_TOPLINE.pdf

Additional research on teens and tech: https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/internet-technology/user-demographics/age-generations-tech/teens-tech/