YouTube Is Now the Most Popular Online Platform Among US Teenagers Aged 13-17, Survey Reveals
A big change has been observed when it comes to how U.S. teens spend their time online, as a new online platform has emerged as most popular among people in that demographic.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, the new most popular online platform among U.S. teens is none other than YouTube.
Per the survey, a whopping 85 percent of U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 said that they use the aforementioned video-sharing website.
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YouTube was not just the most popular online platform among teens today, it is also number one by quite a large margin.
Ending up in second place is the photo and video social networking site known as Instagram, and while 72 percent of the respondents said that they use that site, it is still well behind YouTube.
The gap between third and second place is significantly narrower, as Snapchat is being used by 69 percent of teenagers.
Finishing in a somewhat surprising fourth place is Facebook, with 51 percent of teenagers indicating that they make use of the social media site.
Other sites mentioned in the survey include Twitter, which is used by 32 percent of teenagers; Tumblr, which nine percent of the respondents still visit; and Reddit, which garnered seven percent.
The findings of the new Pew Research Center survey, which was conducted between March 7 and April 10, are interesting not just because of the picture they paint of how teens spend their time online these days, but also because they are quite different from the responses provided by young Americans back in 2015.
An earlier Pew Research Center survey made in 2015 also asked U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 about their favorite online platforms and back then, the number one spot belonged to Facebook. Notably, 71 percent of respondents for that earlier survey said they use Facebook, so even when it was at number one most recently, the social networking site was still not as popular among teens as YouTube is today.
The other online platforms that proved popular among teens back in 2015 include Instagram (52 percent), Snapchat (41 percent), Twitter (33 percent), Google+ (33 percent), Vine (24 percent) and Tumblr (14 percent).
For those wondering how YouTube could go from not even getting a mention in the survey in 2015 to reaching the number one spot three years later, that's because the online platform was not presented as a choice previously.
Perhaps if the 2015 survey also offered YouTube as an option, the site would have registered as a popular platform among teens even then.
Reddit was also not offered as a choice in the earlier survey.
The newer survey also urged respondents to identify which online platforms they used the most often. According to the survey, the online platform used most frequently by U.S. teens these days is Snapchat, but not to be outdone, YouTube still finished with 32 percent.
The other choices received significantly less votes, with only Instagram and Facebook reaching double digits at 15 and 10 percent, respectively.
Twitter registered as an often used site among three percent of the respondents, Reddit finished with one percent and Tumblr did not even match that mark.
