(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 utilise among adults, see "Social Media Utilise in 2021. "

Until recently, Facebook
had dominated the social media landscape among America'southward youth – merely it is no longer the most popular online platform among teens, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Today, roughly half (51%) of U.Southward. 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 use is merely 1 instance of how the technology landscape for young people has evolved since the Center's last survey of teens and technology utilise in 2014-2015. Most notably, smartphone buying has become a nearly ubiquitous chemical element of teen life: 95% of teens now report they have a smartphone or access to one. These mobile connections are in plow fueling more-persistent online activities: 45% of teens now say they are online on a well-nigh-constant footing.

The survey too finds there is no clear consensus amid teens about the effect that social media has on the lives of immature people today. Minorities of teens describe that event as more often than not positive (31%) or more often than not negative (24%), but the largest share (45%) says that event has been neither positive nor negative.

These are some of the main findings from the Heart's survey of U.S. teens conducted March seven-April 10, 2018. Throughout the report, "teens" refers to those ages xiii to 17.

Facebook is no longer the dominant online platform among teens

The social media landscape in which teens reside looks markedly unlike than information technology did every bit recently as three years agone. In the Center'due south 2014-2015 survey of teen social media use, 71% of teens reported being Facebook users. No other platform was used by a clear bulk of teens at the time: Effectually 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 by sizable majorities of this age group. Meanwhile, 51% of teens now say they utilise Facebook. The shares of teens who utilise Twitter and Tumblr are largely comparable to the shares who did so in the 2014-2015 survey.

For the most part, teens tend to use similar platforms regardless of their demographic characteristics, but in that location are exceptions. Notably, lower-income teens are more probable to gravitate toward Facebook than those from higher-income households – a trend consistent with previous Middle surveys. Seven-in-ten teens living in households earning less than $30,000 a year say they use Facebook, compared with 36% whose annual family unit income is $75,000 or more. (For details on social media platform utilise by different demographic groups, see Appendix A.)

It is of import to annotation in that location were some changes in question wording between Pew Inquiry Center's 2014-2015 and 2018 surveys of teen social media use. YouTube and Reddit were non included as options in the 2014-2015 survey but were included in the electric current survey. In addition, the 2014-2015 survey required respondents to provide an explicit response for whether or non they used each platform, while the 2018 survey presented respondents with a list of sites and allowed them to select the ones they employ.1 Nevertheless, it is clear the social media environment today revolves less around a single platform than it did three years agone.ii

When it comes to which one of these online platforms teens use the most, roughly one-3rd say they visit Snapchat (35%) or YouTube (32%) most oftentimes, while 15% say the same of Instagram. Past comparing, 10% of teens say Facebook is their most-used online platform, and fifty-fifty fewer cite Twitter, Reddit or Tumblr equally the site they visit most often.

Again, lower-income teens are far more probable than those from higher income households to say Facebook is the online platform they use nigh often (22% vs. 4%). There are also some differences related to gender and to race and ethnicity when it comes to teens' most-used sites. Girls are more likely than boys to say Snapchat is the site they apply most often (42% vs. 29%), while boys are more than inclined than girls to place YouTube as their go-to platform (39% vs. 25%). Additionally, white teens (41%) are more likely than Hispanic (29%) or black (23%) teens to say Snapchat is the online platform they employ virtually often, while black teens are more than likely than whites to place Facebook as their about used site (26% vs. 7%).

Despite the near ubiquitous presence of social media in their lives, there is no clear consensus among 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 mostly positive affect, while 24% describe its effect as more often than not negative.

Given the opportunity to explicate their views in their own words, teens who say social media has had a mostly positive effect tended to stress issues related to connectivity and connexion with others. Some forty% of these respondents said that social media has had a positive touch on because 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 and friends and to connect with new people:

"I call up social media take a positive effect because it lets you talk to family unit members far away." (Girl, age 14)

"I feel that social media can make people my historic period experience less solitary or alone. It creates a infinite where y'all can collaborate with people." (Girl, age 15)

"It enables people to connect with friends easily and be able to make new friends also." (Boy, historic period 15)

Others in this grouping cite the greater access to news and data that social media facilitates (16%), or existence able to connect with people who share similar interests (15%):

"My mom had to become a ride to the library to go what I have in my hand all the time. She reminds me of that a lot." (Girl, age 14)

"Information technology has given many kids my historic period an outlet to express their opinions and emotions, and connect with people who feel the same way." (Daughter, age 15)

Smaller shares argue that social media is a proficient venue for entertainment (ix%), that it offers a space for self-expression (vii%) or that it allows teens to get support from others (5%) or to learn new things in general (4%).

"Considering a lot of things created or made can spread joy." (Boy, historic period 17)

"[Social media] allows us to communicate freely and see what everyone else is doing. [It] gives us a vox that tin can reach many people." (Boy, age 15)

"We can connect easier with people from unlike places and we are more likely to inquire for help through social media which can save people." (Girl, age 15)

There is slightly less consensus amid teens who say social media has had a by and large negative effect on people their historic period. The tiptop response (mentioned past 27% of these teens) is that social media has led to more bullying and the overall spread of rumors.

"Gives people a bigger audience to speak and teach hate and belittle each other." (Boy, age 13)

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

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

Meanwhile, 17% of these respondents experience these platforms damage relationships and event in less meaningful homo interactions. Similar shares recall social media distorts reality and gives teens an unrealistic view of other people's lives (15%), or that teens spend also much time on social media (14%).

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

"Information technology makes it harder for people to socialize in real life, because they go accustomed to non interacting with people in person." (Girl, age xv)

"It provides a fake image of someone's life. It sometimes makes me feel that their life is perfect when it is not." (Daughter, historic period 15)

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

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

Vast majority of teens have access to a dwelling house computer or smartphone

Some 95% of teens at present say they have or have access to a smartphone, which represents a 22-percentage-signal increase from the 73% of teens who said this in 2014-2015. Smartphone buying is nearly universal amongst 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 admission to a desktop or laptop reckoner at home, admission varies profoundly by income level. Fully 96% of teens from households with an annual income of $75,000 or more than per yr say they take access to a calculator at home, but that share falls to 75% amid those from households earning less than $30,000 a twelvemonth.

Computer admission likewise varies by the level of pedagogy among parents. Teens who have a parent with a available's degree or more are more likely to say they take admission to a reckoner than teens whose parents have a loftier school diploma or less (94% vs. 78%).

As smartphone access has become more prevalent, a growing share of teens now report using the cyberspace on a near-abiding basis. Some 45% of teens say they use the internet "almost constantly," a effigy that has almost doubled from the 24% who said this in the 2014-2015 survey. Another 44% say they get online several times a solar day, pregnant roughly nine-in-10 teens go online at least multiple times per twenty-four hour period.

At that place are some differences in teens' frequency of internet utilize by gender, every bit well as race and ethnicity. Half of teenage girls (50%) are near-constant online users, compared with 39% of teenage boys. And Hispanic teens are more likely than whites to report using the internet almost constantly (54% vs. 41%).

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

Overall, 84% of teens say they have or accept access to a game console at abode, and 90% say they play video games of any kind (whether on a figurer, game panel or cellphone). While a substantial bulk of girls written report having access to a game console at home (75%) or playing video games in general (83%), those shares are even college amongst boys. Roughly 9-in-x boys (92%) have or accept access to a game panel at home, and 97% say they play video games in some form or fashion.

At that place has been growth in game panel ownership amidst Hispanic teens and teens from lower-income families since the Heart's previous study of the teen technology landscape in 2014-2015. The share of Hispanics who say they have access to a game console at home grew past 10 pct points during this fourth dimension period. And 85% of teens from households earning less than $thirty,000 a year now say they have a game console at home, up from 67% in 2014-2015.