Teens and how they will use social media in 2024

I was at a dinner party the other week, I was the only Gen X person there, the other people there were baby boomers and one of them said “I read the other day, when kids go to University they don't even know how to switch a cooker on”.

Now I was on my best behaviour so I didn't say anything , but these people, even through they have children in their 20s, don't seem to get the world.

We've been brought up in the world of Google, TikTok and Youtube, if we want to know something, then we get out our mobiles and search. ?If you want to know how to turn on a cooker, just go to TikTok. I've just gone to TikTok and there are videos showing you how to do just that.?

My partners youngest purchased a flat, when he was 24, here in London and did it up, by watching youtube videos. He has become a pretty good bike mechanic by watching youtube videos.?

Education is now "just in time" (JIT)".?

The research I'm going to walk through is from Pew research and you can find it here .?

Here’s a look at the key findings related to online platforms:

"YouTube continues to dominate. Roughly nine-in-ten teens say they use YouTube, making it the most widely used platform measured in our survey.

TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram remain popular among teens: Majorities of teens ages 13 to 17 say they use TikTok (63%), Snapchat (60%) and Instagram (59%). For older teens ages 15 to 17, these shares are about seven-in-ten.

Teens are less likely to be using Facebook and Twitter (recently renamed X) than they were a decade ago: Facebook once dominated the social media landscape among America’s youth, but the share of teens who use the site has dropped from 71% in 2014-2015 to 33% today. Twitter, which was renamed X in July 2023, has also seen its teen user base shrink during the past decade – albeit at a less steep decline than Facebook.

Teens’ site and app usage has changed little in the past year. The share of teens using these platforms has remained relatively stable since spring 2022, when the Center last surveyed on these topics. For example, the percentage of teens who use TikTok is statistically unchanged since last year.

And for the first time, we asked teens about using BeReal: 13% report using this app.

How often do teens visit online platforms?

In addition to asking teens about the types of platforms they use, we also asked them how often they use five specific platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook.?

YouTube, the most widely used platform measured in the survey, is also frequently visited by its users. About seven-in-ten teens say they visit the video-sharing platform daily, including 16% who report being on the site almost constantly.

At the same time, 58% of teens are daily users of TikTok. This includes 17% who describe their TikTok use as almost constant.

About half of teens use Snapchat and Instagram daily. A somewhat larger share reports using Snapchat almost constantly compared with Instagram (14% vs. 8%).

Far fewer teens say they use Facebook on a daily basis (19%), with only 3% saying they are on the site almost constantly. ?

Taken together, a third of teens use at least one of these five sites almost constantly – which is similar to what we found last year . ??

How much time are teens spending online?

In addition to asking teens about their social media use, we also examined the amount of time they report spending online.

Nearly half of teens say they use the internet “almost constantly.” This is on par with what we found last year, but roughly double the 24% who said this in the 2014-2015 survey.

Overall, more than nine-in-ten say they use the internet at least daily."

The survey – conducted Sept. 26-Oct. 23, 2023, among 1,453 13- to 17-year-olds – covered social media, internet use and device ownership among teens.

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