Facebook Is Officially Losing Out to Snapchat and Instagram Among American Teens

• Facebook lost its number one spot in social media among US Teens.
• According to a recent study, the social media website has lost 20% of American teens to other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.
• YouTube is the most popular platform for US teens with around 85% teens claiming they use the platform.

Facebook has lost its number one spot as the most popular social media platform among American teens. According to a recent study, the percentage of US teens who use Facebook has dropped from 71% to 51%. Only 45% of American teens claim to use the social media platform regularly. Facebook’s own Instagram sees 72% US teens using the platform while Snapchat sits close at 69%. Google’s YouTube is the most used social platform among teens with 85% American teens claiming they use the video sharing platform. However, YouTube is not a traditional social media website like Snapchat and Instagram.

Image Courtesy of Pew Research

All is not doom and gloom for Facebook, with the social media platform experiencing a rise in users from lower-income households. Households that make less than $30,000 per year are more likely to have teens in the family use Facebook than ones that make over $75,000. Over 70% teens from lower income households use the social media platform while only 36% teens from high-income households claim to use Facebook. Surprisingly, Instagram is a platform that is unaffected by household income with the userbase well split across multiple income groups.

Image Courtesy of Pew Research

Twitter is trailing well behind in the social media world with only 32% teens using the platform. Twitter continues to be an adult-dominated platform, unlike most other social media platforms that attract the younger demographic. According to the report, Snapchat is the most frequently used social media platform with 35% teens claiming they use the app very frequently.

The research also tried to identify how American teens feel about social media. 45% of the teens claimed that they are indifferent to them while 31% feel social media is positive. 24% of the participants claimed social media is mostly negative citing bullying and rumor mongering as the major reasons that make them feel negative about platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram.