Online usage is up with Millennial and Gen Z users, and YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the big winners.
A May 2018 study conducted by Pew Research Center found that of U.S. teens ages 13-17, 85 percent of those surveyed use YouTube, 72 percent use Instagram and 69 percent use Snapchat. In contrast, only 51 percent said they use Facebook.
In terms of the most-used platform, 35 percent of teens surveyed chose Snapchat, while 32 percent said YouTube and 15 percent said Instagram. Only 10 percent of teens said Facebook is their most visited site.
Time spent online is also growing, with 45 percent of respondents reporting that they are online “almost constantly.” Time spent online may go hand-in-hand with access to social media and smart phones; 95 percent of respondent’s report owning or having access to a smartphone. The access to a smart phone is consistent among teens of different genders, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Smart phone access is up 22 percentage points from the nearly 75 percent of U.S. teens who reported owning or having access to a smartphone in Pew Research Center’s 2014-2015 survey of the same topic. Previously, 70 percent of teens were on Facebook and only 24 percent of teens reported going online “almost constantly.” In 2014-2015, 52 percent of teens surveyed reported using Instagram and 41 percent said they used Snapchat. The number of teens who use Twitter and Tumblr remain roughly the same, at 33 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
The significant changes in social media and consumption over the last few years speak to the ever-changing nature of digital advertising, online marketing and public relations. Companies must be focused on creating content for email, social media and websites that can be easily consumed on a mobile device and capture the attention of their target audiences quickly. If you’d like help keeping the pulse on the shifting digital landscape, reach out to Nuffer, Smith, Tucker!