Pew study: Nearly half of U.S. teens say they're online 'almost constantly' | Mashable.
Nearly half of U.S. teens say they're online 'almost constantly'
.webp) |
| Credit: Xavier Lorenzo / Moment via Getty Images |
Teens' social media use — and its effect on their mental health — is often in the news, and new research from the Pew Research Center states that nearly half of American teens are "almost constantly" online.
SEE ALSO:World’s strictest social media law targets users under 16 in Australia
In its Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2024 study, released on Thursday, Pew stated that nearly half (46 percent) of today's teens aged 13 to 17 say they're online almost constantly. While this figure is consistent with 2022 and 2023 research, this is a 24 percent increase from a decade ago.
Nearly all (96 percent) of teens say they go online daily, which is around how many (95 percent) have access to a smartphone.
This report is based on a self-administered web survey of 1,391 U.S. teens and a parent per teen, conducted between September and October this year.
Pew also broke down which platforms teens frequently visit, and how many said they're on them nearly constantly: 16 percent said they're "almost constantly" on TikTok, while 15 percent said the same about YouTube, 13 percent about Snapchat, 12 percent about Instagram, and three percent on Facebook.
More teens say they go on these platforms once or more daily. Overall, 73 percent say they're on YouTube, teens' most frequented social media platform, at least once a day. Fifty-seven percent say they go on TikTok at least once a day, and around half go on Instagram and/or Snapchat once a day. Facebook is the least-visited, but rounds out the top five, with 20 percent of teens saying they go on at least once a day.
Pew found that more teen girls use Instagram and TikTok, while boys are more likely to say they use YouTube. Fewer teens use X (17 percent), Reddit (14 percent), and Threads (6 percent).
This research comes amid scrutiny of social media platforms and how they impact teens. In October, the CDC confirmed there is a link between social media use and mental health struggles for teens, and Australia recently banned social media for children under 16.
Topics Social Media
The Ultimate Christmas Gift a chance to earn $15k+ online .Easy, flexible work. last month, I made $16,800 doing an online job.
ReplyDeleteCOPY HERE➤➤ 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞.𝐂𝐨𝐦
This comment is a scam, don't click the link if you don't want to get scammed.
DeleteI'm almost 50 and same. In fact I am watching YouTube on my TV as I type this on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteKids shouldn't be online until age 18.
ReplyDeletethat ship sailed a decade if not more.
DeleteKids have phones and other electronics earlier and earlier. Most middle schoolers in my state have at least a cell phone and every kid has a chrome book for school by 2nd or third grade depending on the district.
that’s fine, we can always go back to those internet-less flip phones for kids 😂
Deleteok. I guess your also going to confiscate every smart watch and chrome book as well. In my state pretty much every student has a laptop startkng around grade three.
DeleteI had Facebook since I was 16, the problem is more the algorithms than having a profile or following someone on Instagram you find interesting
ah that’s true, we could make the algorithm just give the kids nothing but math and science stuff to the point where they themselves put the electronic device down and go outside 😂/s
Deleteagain your living in the past. If anything we need kids in front of screens more learning basic coding and other computer principles as early as possible.
DeleteJust like the Internet changed everything during the teenage to 20s of the millennials, AI is going to dominate every aspect of life before anyone in grade school now finishes highschool.
schools expect them to research online when they write papers, now.
DeleteMake them watch the movie Wall*e.
ReplyDeleteI stopped going out for the past year because it seems as conversation has been elimated , yesterday I ventured out socially and sat at the bar by myself ,2 teenage girls sat next to me along with their friend on facetime . In fact ,that's was different for me ,as I usually never see young people other than on You Tube .I thought it quite astonishing ,then I had a couple sit next to me and we were seved our wine in plastic and a Irish coffee in a waxed paper cup .......... ,we talked about BFA's and politics ....oh well, I have surrendered , I turned to my other side and there was a Black Trump hat ....on the side flap it said "Never surrender " so that was my "holiday" excursion.
ReplyDeleteWhich explains so much for both teens and adults.
ReplyDeleteand half of adults are lying about it, lol
ReplyDelete90% I would say.
DeleteGood thing tiktok is disappearing very soon 😜
ReplyDeleteCasino technology deployed in the service of selling people gadgets instead of providing education.
ReplyDeleteInternet used to be fun until social media
ReplyDeleteIf only there were some way for parents to prevent this…
ReplyDeleteWhat have we done to our youth 🙁
ReplyDeleteI'm responding to you on blog as I stream YouTube on my TV. I'm almost 50. Everything is online so everyone is online all the time.
Deleteyes and?
DeleteTeens are using Snapchat??
ReplyDeleteWhat is this 2015?
BOLESNA GENERACIJA....
ReplyDeleteTU NEMA LJEKA.....
The next generation of brainwashed puppets, what a bright future lies ahead!
ReplyDeleteAnd they said the machines won't take over 🤣
ReplyDeleteNo wonder why they can't think for themselves and have the attention span of a gnat
ReplyDelete只要能分辨是非，任何一項資訊都不會影響自主性，必須要有擇優汰劣的觀念，就不會被洗腦。
ReplyDeleteMillennium kids
ReplyDeletemillennials are in their 40's now. Try again
DeleteI. Q. 🕊️ 🤣😂🤣
DeleteMillenials: 1981-1996
Delete2000 hos mig millennium
Delete1000. 2000 millennium. 🤣😂🤣😂🇺🇸🧠💀🇺🇸🧠💀
DeleteCheckmate
DeleteAz amerikai tizenévesek közel fele "szinte állandóan" online van, derül ki a Pew 2024-es tanulmányából.
ReplyDeleteA TikTok vezet a tizenévesek 16%-ával, akik mindig ott vannak, ezt követi a YouTube (15%), a Snapchat (13%) és az Instagram (12%).
A platformhasználatra ráközelítve a lányok inkább az Instagram/TikTok, míg a fiúk a YouTube felé hajlanak.
YouTube
ReplyDeleteYikes! 😬
ReplyDeleteTime to take away their phones. Social media is toxic and mostly a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteDid WhatsApp write this ?
ReplyDeleteYou’d be surprised, and so was I, some countries will have WhatsApp be their 2012 Facebook
DeleteHow does the fees work on what’s app? Isn’t it just a messenger
DeleteBusinesses pay to send automated messages in it, it's free for users
DeleteIs this why I’m getting automatically added to thousand person groups about some bullshit new crypto?
DeleteNo, thats because your privacy settings allows you to be addeed to groups without that person being in your contact list
DeleteWhere are these mythical privacy setting? Asking for a friend.
DeleteSettings > privacy > groups
Deletehhahahahahahah. Spoon feeding.
DeleteNo fees they just harvest all your data. They say it's end to end encrypted but they've a method. I've seen things from my chats show up in ads
DeleteEh, phones are listening anyways. I was talking to a co-worker and he brought up this mini bike he was restoring and, if it isn't the world's wildest coincidence, I had ads related to mini bikes.
DeleteYour phone is not listening to you, what's actually happening is you're getting ads by proxy of who you know. The kind of data required to record, store and transmit would be extra visible, and a lot of us would notice. We already figured out Google was using several sneaky methods to track your physical location even when you disabled location services.
DeleteThe scarier story is that you digitally 'leak' so much personal and professional data in your day to day actions and broadcast your friend groups to every platform, that they they don't need to physically listen to you to build the kind of digital profile that connects you to minibikes through a loose personal connection.
That’s the freaky part imo - that they don’t need to listen.
DeleteI need to print off this comment on business cards and give it wordlessly to people who try to convince me our phones are listening to us.
DeleteIf I’m being sent ads because of friends I know, then their phone must be listening to them.
DeleteIf their phone is listening to them, why do you think my phone isn’t listening to me?
Did I ever say the phone was recording audio?
DeleteCan we forgo the pedantic literal definition of "listen" as it's typically applied to human interaction? What does a computer do when it's configured to wake-on-lan? It's listening. Waiting.
Constantly trying to anthropomorphize a phone is just detrimental to any conversation.
Listening is synonymous with paying attention.
I meant feeds. Like how do people find content ? Isn’t it just a msg service?
Deleteit is, you have to know someones phone number to contact them (usually) there is no scrolling like tiktok or instagram
DeleteThey have communities which is like Facebook groups chat now
DeleteCertain countries believe WhatsApp is the entire internet. They use it for socials, news, buying stuff. Just everything.
DeleteYep, I went to Mexico City a couple of months ago, and they use WhatsApp as their defacto cell service since there's a lot of free public wifi access, and that's all they need to make and receive calls/texts.
DeleteMost businesses show their WhatsApp number first and then their business number.
How do you access this WhatsApp internet?
DeleteDepends on the country you are in. Not an exaggeration but options change based on the country and contacts you may have.
DeleteSo far the only experience I've had with WhatsApp is people begging for money
ReplyDeleteMine is ex’s trying to contact me since they’ve been blocked elsewhere.
DeleteSame here
DeleteIt definitely seems like it has become the ubiquitous work/group chat platform all over the world no matter the country.
ReplyDeleteedit: when ranked by number of Whatsapp users, USA is number 3 in the world behind India and Brazil.
Almost nobody here in the US uses WhatsApp.
DeleteYeah...I don't like Whatsapp at all. Seemed cheap and ugly
DeleteWhatsApp is just SMS in an app. It’s linked to your number. It gained popularity because in most countries in the late 00s data was way way waaay cheaper than calling minutes and SMS so instead of paying x amount of money per message, you would use WhatsApp that used data instead, and it would also not use your plan when connected to WiFi. Voila, WhatsApp killed SMS everywhere in the world but the US. For the rest of the world , regular SMS looks cheap and ugly because the only stuff you get through sms is spam crap from prisons and pay-day loan sharks.
DeleteNo. I literally thought the app seemed cheap and shitty. I know what it is. Thanks for wasting your time with the explanation though
DeleteDidn’t waste it at all, a number of people read it and learned something, even got an upvote. Being on reddit is wasting time already as it is. But yeah keep being an ass, I’m sure you’ll get as far as you already have, which is pretty likely, nowhere.
DeleteOk Mr Construction Manager 🤣👌🏼
DeleteWhy are you wasting your precious time on Reddit? X? blog's?
DeleteWrong....1/4 American use whatsapp according to pew research....
DeleteI only use WhatsApp to talk with people out side of the States.
DeleteWhat do they use?
DeleteSlack / Microsoft Teams / some other app for work chats.
DeleteThen regular text messages for personal stuff.
And then Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc for talking to friends on social media apps.
Interesting. Only my friends in tech and finance use those.
DeleteI’d add that we use social media to keep in touch with people from out of the U.S.
DeleteI’d assume the fees for talking to people from other countries through normal text is what makes what’s app so popular in other countries.
But the need for something like that is a lot rarer here. And when we do need to talk to someone from another country Facebook messenger or the like is good enough.
Who uses FB though
DeleteI mean not me. But it is still the most popular social media app by a large margin so I picked it.
DeleteInteresting take. How do you feel about the fact that when ranked by *number of Whatsapp users by country, USA is number 3 behind Brazil and India?
Deleteedit: typo *
I’ve never met an American that uses it is all I know about that. I’d argue most people I know have probably never even heard of it. I know dozens more people that use apps like discord or line to communicate honestly. But I understand my experience doesn’t make it true.
DeleteI think it is a similar situation to Facebook. I have very few friends who use it but it's immensely popular amongst the older generations and other communities I do not frequent that drag up the average to be the most popular social media platform.
DeleteIts 3 billion monthly users is more than the population of the USA over the next most popular social media being YouTube and no one’s using YouTube to message acquaintances. The 3rd most popular is also owned by Facebook. But I’ve never used instagram either so I couldn’t even say if it has a message feature.
DeleteIt’s honestly crazy the strangle hold Facebook has over social media even in 2024 about 10 years after “no one uses it any more.”
Edit: When u account for the 2billion people under 14 and the 750m or so over 65. That only leaves around 2b people in the world of “social media age” that like me and u don’t use facebook monthly. When u add Instagram users it’s much less.
Whatsapp is better in the sense that at least is end to end encrypted.
Delete🇺🇸 here, have to use it because my parents and bff use it 😌 they live in Europe
DeleteCan confirm haha. Only my Mexican relatives use it. Seems to be way more popular out of states
DeleteIt’s the other way around. The only place it has not replaced sms it’s in the US
DeleteIt's super common for US parents. We have multiple WhatsApp groups for classrooms, extracurriculars, and camps.
DeleteLol I don’t think I know a single person who uses WhatsApp. Know plenty with an account and have the app on their phone from a time long ago. Mostly due to int’l travel. But I’m curious, why would an American use WhatsApp? Don’t like 80 percent of Americans have iphones?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s app is the go to messaging app except the USA it seems like.
ReplyDeleteAlso Telegram, but just because of the channels.
DeleteWhich is weird, I’m in the US and I have plenty of WhatsApp groups and use it every day
DeleteAll of Europe is using it. Here in the Netherlands, it’s the go-to chat app.
ReplyDeleteDo you have only 100 texts a month allowed or something on Europe phone plans? Didn't think so, wtf just use text message.
DeleteTbf most platforms are just advertising machines now
ReplyDeleteITT: Americans once again shocked to learn other countries exist
ReplyDeleteI don’t even know anyone who has used WhatsApp before
ReplyDeletePretty much the only messaging app in use here in the UK.
DeleteGo to Spanish speaking countries, India or similar and it's everywhere
DeleteI'm not even sure what it is, and I'm afraid if I have to ask I've passed some old people's threshold without noticing
DeleteIt's a messaging app. That's it.
DeleteMy four year old just asked when he gets a phone. I’m like uh, when you’re an adult.
ReplyDeleteI spent a lot of time in India pre-pandemic and WhatsApp is used there by a ton of people. I use it to keep in touch.
ReplyDeleteDuh. Trad am is toxic af. Archaic “let’s go back to the Stone Age” messaging gets algos a hard on and that’s all they show. Kids don’t want to live like that. It’s what happens when you have fat cat boomers with their greed mentality running shit instead of fucking retiring. No one needs them and their ways in charge any more.
ReplyDeleteKinda makes sense, some high traffic social media sites get ruined, but the less popular ones remain more practical. Reddit used to be much more in the shadows than it is today.
ReplyDeleteAww they’re going back to the old 1:1 days. But with their own technology. The cycle is continuing
ReplyDeleteI mean i barely use social media outside of their messaging apps
ReplyDeleteTelegram is picking up too.
ReplyDeleteTeens aren't interested in platforms overrun with corporate / plutocratic / supremecist propoganda? Who would have thought?
ReplyDeleteWhat about telegram? What happened.
ReplyDeleteUsed for porn and legally grey area stuff, not worth it.
DeleteWhatsApp is for countries that got the internet last month
ReplyDeleteSMS is for cheap ass countries with shit data plans basically
Delete