Pew Research Center finds YouTube is teens’ most used media platform

Pew Research Center finds Youtube ranks highest in teen consumption amongst other media platforms in new study published. Usage statistics have mainly stayed the same between platforms, but many platforms saw decreases between years due to rises in other areas and other platforms being given consideration.

For many younger media viewers, Youtube was the first big platform to be brought to the general population’s attention ever since it’s launch in 2005. As such, it is no surprise to learn that the media giant has once again come out on top for teen media consumption across various digital platforms.

In a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center focused on teens’ digital media consumption, the center honed in on many prominent platforms in the digital media space such as Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. This year, the center included social messaging and streaming platform Discord into the study to accommodate a more comprehensive list of media platform usage.

The overall study concluded that yet again Youtube remained the top media platform with teens, but at a slight decrease to the previous years study. Falling from 95% in 2022 to 93% this year. The decrease is not drastic but could be explained by the burgeoning use of TikTok by many younger users, causing TikTok to be the second most used service for teens bringing in roughly 63% of teens. What is interesting, however, is that this platform also saw a slight decrease in it’s younger users, falling from last year’s 67% down to 63%. Though TikTok did see a decrease in younger audiences’ consumption, it did overcome Instagram’s 59%, causing it to take second place and putting Instagram firmly in third.

As it came to services dedicated to community socialization such as Discord, WhatsApp, Twitter and Twitch, the study found that an average of 28% of teens used Discord, a high compared to the other platforms, which may explain the center’s inclusion of the service for the first time this year. WhatsApp came in with a 21% teen usage with Twitter shortly behind with 20%. Surprisingly, given the large numbers of younger viewers that can be seen engaging in Twitch streams, the service brought in the lowest percentage of teens usage with only 17%.

The study also got a little more specific with teen usage, reporting on each teens average daily usage of all platforms. It is reported that TikTok is a daily browse for 58% of teens, with a slight minority reporting that their usage of the app is almost constant. It is also reported that nearly half of teens use Snapchat and Instagram daily alongside TikTok, showing that short-form media platforms tend to keep the vast majority of teens daily media consumption on average.