Newsflash, Boomers: Teens Prefer YouTube, TikTok Over Facebook

A new survey verifies what many already suspect: American kids don’t like Facebook all that much. 

Pew Research Center recently released the results of its survey of teenagers ages 13 to 17 in the United States. The results show that Chinese-owned TikTok has become the top social media platform for this demographic, with 67% of the respondents saying they’ve used the app and 16% are on it constantly. 

Facebook, which was the dominant platform the last time the survey was done in 2015, has plummeted to the number five spot in the social media category after Snapchat. 32% of those surveyed report having used the platform, while only 2% say that they regularly use the app.

Sponsored · Cambria Gold Mines

YouTube takes the overall spot as the favorite platform among the teens, with 95% saying that they’ve used the platform, and 19% saying that they’re on it constantly.

Facebook is known to have struggled with today’s young generation. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META), its parent company, has tried to address this problem by making its platforms look more like TikTok, and shifting its focus on vertical video content it calls “Reels.”

While Facebook has a steadily growing base of 2.9 billion monthly active users from when it was launched in 2004, TikTok was able to grow to almost 1.6 billion monthly active users in the first quarter of 2022 from its launch in 2016, with the biggest growth happening between the third quarter and the fourth quarter of 2021. 

Mobile researcher Data.ai also reports that users outside China spend an average of 19.2 hours per month on the app, which is almost five times the figure in 2018, which was only 4.2 hours per user.

Meta Platforms last traded at $179.69 on the Nasdaq.

Information for this briefing was found via Pew Research Center, Bloomberg, Data.ai, and the companies and sources mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.