(Drew Angerer/Getty Images News via Getty Images)
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images News via Getty Images)

For the latest survey data on social media and messaging app use among adults, see "Social Media Use in 2021. "

Until recently, Facebook
had dominated the social media landscape amid America's youth – but information technology is no longer the most popular online platform amidst teens, according to a new Pew Inquiry Eye survey. Today, roughly half (51%) of U.S. teens ages thirteen to 17 say they use Facebook, notably lower than the shares who use YouTube, Instagram or Snapchat.

This shift in teens' social media utilise is just one example of how the applied science landscape for young people has evolved since the Eye's last survey of teens and technology use in 2014-2015. Most notably, smartphone ownership has get a virtually ubiquitous element of teen life: 95% of teens at present report they have a smartphone or access to one. These mobile connections are in turn fueling more-persistent online activities: 45% of teens at present say they are online on a near-constant basis.

The survey also finds there is no clear consensus among teens about the issue that social media has on the lives of young people today. Minorities of teens depict that effect as mostly positive (31%) or mostly negative (24%), but the largest share (45%) says that effect has been neither positive nor negative.

These are some of the main findings from the Centre'due south survey of U.Due south. teens conducted March vii-Apr 10, 2018. Throughout the report, "teens" refers to those ages thirteen to 17.

Facebook is no longer the dominant online platform amongst teens

The social media mural in which teens reside looks markedly different than it did equally recently every bit 3 years ago. In the Center's 2014-2015 survey of teen social media use, 71% of teens reported being Facebook users. No other platform was used past a articulate bulk of teens at the fourth dimension: Around half (52%) of teens said they used Instagram, while 41% reported using Snapchat.

In 2018, three online platforms other than Facebook – YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat – are used past sizable majorities of this age group. Meanwhile, 51% of teens now say they use Facebook. The shares of teens who use Twitter and Tumblr are largely comparable to the shares who did so in the 2014-2015 survey.

For the most role, teens tend to use similar platforms regardless of their demographic characteristics, but there are exceptions. Notably, lower-income teens are more probable to gravitate toward Facebook than those from higher-income households – a trend consistent with previous Center surveys. Seven-in-10 teens living in households earning less than $xxx,000 a year say they use Facebook, compared with 36% whose almanac family unit income is $75,000 or more. (For details on social media platform use past different demographic groups, see Appendix A.)

It is important to notation there were some changes in question diction between Pew Research Heart's 2014-2015 and 2018 surveys of teen social media use. YouTube and Reddit were not included as options in the 2014-2015 survey but were included in the current survey. In addition, the 2014-2015 survey required respondents to provide an explicit response for whether or not they used each platform, while the 2018 survey presented respondents with a list of sites and immune them to select the ones they use.ane Even and so, it is clear the social media environment today revolves less around a unmarried platform than it did three years ago.ii

When it comes to which ane of these online platforms teens use the nigh, roughly one-third say they visit Snapchat (35%) or YouTube (32%) well-nigh oftentimes, while fifteen% say the same of Instagram. Past comparison, x% of teens say Facebook is their most-used online platform, and even fewer cite Twitter, Reddit or Tumblr as the site they visit most often.

Again, lower-income teens are far more than likely than those from college income households to say Facebook is the online platform they apply most oft (22% vs. four%). There are likewise some differences related to gender and to race and ethnicity when information technology comes to teens' most-used sites. Girls are more likely than boys to say Snapchat is the site they employ almost often (42% vs. 29%), while boys are more inclined than girls to identify YouTube as their go-to platform (39% vs. 25%). Additionally, white teens (41%) are more than likely than Hispanic (29%) or black (23%) teens to say Snapchat is the online platform they employ most often, while black teens are more likely than whites to place Facebook equally their most used site (26% vs. 7%).

Despite the nigh ubiquitous presence of social media in their lives, there is no clear consensus amid teens about these platforms' ultimate impact on people their historic period. A plurality of teens (45%) believe social media has a neither positive nor negative effect on people their age. Meanwhile, roughly three-in-ten teens (31%) say social media has had a by and large positive impact, while 24% describe its outcome equally mostly negative.

Given the opportunity to explain their views in their own words, teens who say social media has had a mostly positive event tended to stress problems related to connectivity and connection with others. Some xl% of these respondents said that social media has had a positive impact considering it helps them keep in touch and interact with others. Many of these responses emphasize how social media has made it easier to communicate with family unit and friends and to connect with new people:

"I call back social media accept a positive result considering it lets you talk to family unit members far away." (Girl, age 14)

"I feel that social media can brand people my age experience less lonely or solitary. It creates a infinite where you can interact with people." (Girl, age fifteen)

"It enables people to connect with friends easily and be able to make new friends besides." (Male child, historic period fifteen)

Others in this group cite the greater access to news and information that social media facilitates (sixteen%), or beingness able to connect with people who share similar interests (xv%):

"My mom had to go a ride to the library to get what I have in my manus all the time. She reminds me of that a lot." (Girl, historic period xiv)

"It has given many kids my age an outlet to limited their opinions and emotions, and connect with people who feel the same style." (Girl, age fifteen)

Smaller shares argue that social media is a good venue for entertainment (9%), that it offers a space for self-expression (7%) or that it allows teens to get support from others (5%) or to learn new things in general (four%).

"Considering a lot of things created or fabricated tin spread joy." (Boy, age 17)

"[Social media] allows u.s. to communicate freely and see what everyone else is doing. [It] gives united states of america a voice that can accomplish many people." (Boy, age 15)

"Nosotros can connect easier with people from different places and we are more likely to ask for help through social media which can salve people." (Daughter, age fifteen)

There is slightly less consensus amidst teens who say social media has had a more often than not negative result on people their age. The top response (mentioned by 27% of these teens) is that social media has led to more bullying and the overall spread of rumors.

"Gives people a bigger audition to speak and teach hate and belittle each other." (Male child, age 13)

"People can say whatever they want with anonymity and I think that has a negative impact." (Boy, age 15)

"Because teens are killing people all because of the things they run into on social media or considering of the things that happened on social media." (Girl, age fourteen)

Meanwhile, 17% of these respondents feel these platforms damage relationships and result in less meaningful human interactions. Similar shares call back social media distorts reality and gives teens an unrealistic view of other people'south lives (15%), or that teens spend too much time on social media (14%).

"It has a negative bear upon on social (in-person) interactions." (Male child, age 17)

"Information technology makes it harder for people to socialize in real life, because they get accustomed to not interacting with people in person." (Girl, historic period 15)

"It provides a false epitome of someone's life. It sometimes makes me feel that their life is perfect when it is not." (Girl, age 15)

"[Teens] would rather become scrolling on their phones instead of doing their homework, and it's so easy to do so. It's simply a huge distraction." (Boy, age 17)

Another 12% criticize social media for influencing teens to give in to peer pressure, while smaller shares limited concerns that these sites could pb to psychological issues or drama.

Vast bulk of teens have access to a home computer or smartphone

Some 95% of teens now say they have or take access to a smartphone, which represents a 22-percentage-bespeak increase from the 73% of teens who said this in 2014-2015. Smartphone buying is nearly universal among teens of different genders, races and ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.

A more nuanced story emerges when it comes to teens' access to computers. While 88% of teens report having access to a desktop or laptop calculator at home, access varies greatly by income level. Fully 96% of teens from households with an almanac income of $75,000 or more per year say they take access to a computer at habitation, but that share falls to 75% amongst those from households earning less than $30,000 a yr.

Estimator access too varies by the level of education among parents. Teens who have a parent with a bachelor'southward degree or more are more likely to say they have admission to a computer than teens whose parents have a high school diploma or less (94% vs. 78%).

As smartphone admission has get more prevalent, a growing share of teens at present report using the internet on a about-abiding basis. Some 45% of teens say they use the internet "most constantly," a effigy that has nearly doubled from the 24% who said this in the 2014-2015 survey. Another 44% say they go online several times a twenty-four hours, meaning roughly nine-in-ten teens go online at least multiple times per twenty-four hours.

At that place are some differences in teens' frequency of internet use by gender, as well as race and ethnicity. One-half of teenage girls (50%) are virtually-constant online users, compared with 39% of teenage boys. And Hispanic teens are more probable than whites to written report using the cyberspace almost constantly (54% vs. 41%).

A majority of both boys and girls play video games, simply gaming is nigh universal for boys

Overall, 84% of teens say they have or take access to a game console at domicile, and 90% say they play video games of any kind (whether on a figurer, game console or cellphone). While a substantial majority of girls report having access to a game panel at abode (75%) or playing video games in full general (83%), those shares are even higher among boys. Roughly nine-in-ten boys (92%) accept or accept access to a game console at domicile, and 97% say they play video games in some form or manner.

There has been growth in game panel buying among Hispanic teens and teens from lower-income families since the Center'south previous study of the teen technology landscape in 2014-2015. The share of Hispanics who say they have access to a game console at dwelling grew by 10 percentage points during this time period. And 85% of teens from households earning less than $30,000 a year at present say they accept a game panel at home, up from 67% in 2014-2015.