Survey: Half of US teens online ‘constantly’

(CN) — Nearly half of all teenagers report being online almost constantly, up from around 24% a decade ago, according to a report released Thursday by Pew Research Center.

The organization also found 96% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using the internet daily and 95% have access to a smartphone.

Among destinations capturing their attention, YouTube tops the list with around 90% of those surveyed indicating they use the video-sharing site, 73% of them daily. TikTok and Instagram had a 63% and 61% share of the daily teen audience, respectively, while Snapchat was used by 55% of teens daily.

Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, are falling out of favor with teens, according to the survey, with only 32% using Facebook daily — a decline from 71% a decade ago. Use of X among teens has fallen from 33% in 2014 to 17% this year.

Since 2022, an increasing number of teen respondents reported using WhatsApp, a secure messaging and phone platform that, like Facebook and Instagram, is owned by Meta. The share of teens using WhatsApp has increased from 17% to 23% in two years, according to the survey. The share of teens who use Reddit, roughly 14%, has remained relatively stable over the past few years.

TikTok leads the pack when it comes to the percentage of teens who say they are “constantly” on the app. Roughly 16% of respondents answered affirmatively to always being on TikTok, compared to 15% who are constantly on YouTube. Snapchat came in third by capturing 13% of teens constantly while Instagram accounted for 12% of those who are always online.

The “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024” survey is conducted annually amid broader concerns over time limits or other restrictions for young users of social media, including a federal lawsuit in California accusing the companies of “cultivating addiction” among teens.

A separate Pew survey from 2023 found 81% of adults favored adding parental consent requirements to teen social media accounts, along with time limits and other restrictions. In June 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels for social media, similar to what is required of cigarette manufacturers, because of its “significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

Pew’s data further showed that teen girls are more often constantly drawn to TikTok than boys (19% to 13%), while teen boys are more often constant users of YouTube (19% to 11%). Black and Hispanic users were far more likely (between 24% and 28%) than all teens (15-16%) to report constant use of TikTok or YouTube. Demographics were nearly even for Snapchat, but Instagram also drew far more Black and Hispanic constant users (22% and 18%, respectively) than all teens (12%).

Other findings indicated 88% of respondents had access to a desktop or laptop computer at home, 83% had a gaming console and 70% had a tablet computer. The online survey of 1,391 U.S. teens was conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024. It also captured data about household income and political affiliation.

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