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A Fifth of US Teens Use YouTube 'Almost Constantly,' With TikTok Not Far Behind (engadget.com) 50

Posted by BeauHD from the young-whippersnappers dept.
Pew Research has published a new report that examines social media usage trends among US teens. The organization found that a whopping 95 percent of them use YouTube, while 19 percent are on the platform "almost constantly." Engadget reports: Perhaps unsurprisingly, two-thirds (67 percent) said they used TikTok, with 16 percent claiming they are on the app "almost constantly." The third most-popular social media platform among teens is Instagram, per Pew, with 62 percent using it. A tenth say they use it almost all the time -- despite the app occasionally telling them to take a break. A previous poll conducted in 2014-15 found that 52 percent were using Instagram (Pew didn't ask about YouTube usage for that survey and TikTok didn't exist at the time).

Snapchat also rose among teens, with 59 percent using it in 2022, compared with 41 percent in the previous poll. Facebook was the top social media app among teens seven years ago, with 71 percent of them using it, but that figure has dropped to 32 percent. Teen adoption of Twitter (down from 33 percent to 23 percent) and Tumblr (14 percent to five percent) has fallen over the same period too. The 2014-15 poll didn't ask about Twitch, WhatsApp or Reddit. These days, a fifth of teens use Twitch, 17 percent are on WhatsApp and 14 percent are accessing Reddit.
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A Fifth of US Teens Use YouTube 'Almost Constantly,' With TikTok Not Far Behind More

A Fifth of US Teens Use YouTube 'Almost Constantly,' With TikTok Not Far Behind

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  • But why is this newsworthy?

  • Shorts oof... (Score:3)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @05:50PM (#62778466) Journal

    ...they're literally killing youtube as we knew it.

    They still haven't implemented a way to skip shorts unless you use their dedicated youtube player (you can't skip shorts on smart tv's either)
    I used to enjoy the wide format videos that had become the norm, but now we're flooded with these tik-tok vertical videos. I absolutely loathe it, considering cancelling my premium subscription for the first time in years.

    r.i.p. youtube.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      If you're on a PC, use a URL redirector plugin to rewrite the URL for shorts to a normal one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )
      YouTube Shorts are still better than Instagram, and I downright refuse to put TikTok on any device I own. So since a large demographic is apparently after really short form content, it's the best for that kind of thing that I can see.

      • I downright refuse to put TikTok on any device I own.

        I only downloaded it when the previous administration was threatening to ban it. After trying to use it though, I thought to myself "Ugh, Trump isn't totally wrong; this is garbage." and deleted it. You really do have to enjoy short format videos or get Gen-Z's humor for it to be entertaining. Anything truly worth seeing from TikTok ends up re-posted on other sites anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by godrik ( 1287354 )

      I'm a little bit confused. What do you mean "you can't skip short"? If I don't click them they don't play. I use youtube on my computer and my phone.

      I must be missing something...

    • They still haven't implemented a way to skip shorts

      Huh? Is this being served up as an advert or something? I've literally never seen a short, but I also don't see any ads either for other reasons (and admittedly I don't use Youtube on the TV).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I use an Android box for my TV (Nvidia Shield but cheaper devices work just fine, e.g. Xiaomi Mi Box) and Smart Tube. It's very similar to the official YouTube client, except that it is ad-free, and no unskippable content. And by ad-free I mean really ad-free, as in it uses Sponsor Block to skip over parts of the video that are ads or promotions for channel merchandise.

  • That's nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @05:51PM (#62778468)
    I heard the children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      I see you've met my five year old.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )
      As qouth Solomon: "There is nothing new under the sun"

      • "I don't really care for people who say that their favorite music is whatever is playing on the radio" - Benjamin Franklin

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      Socrates [bartleby.com]

      NUMBER: 195
      AUTHOR: Socrates (469â"399 B.C.)
      QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
      ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).

      This passage was very popular in the 1960s and its essence was used by the Mayor of Amsterdam, Gijsbert van Hall, following a street demonstration in 1966, as reported by The New York Times, April 3, 1966, p. 16.

      This use prompted Malcolm S. Forbes to write an editorial on youth.â"Forbes, April 15, 1966, p. 11. In that same issue, under the heading âoeSide Lines,â pp. 5â"6, is a summary of the efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the quotation is spurious.
      SUBJECTS: Children

      • Is that he sees contempt for authority as a bad thing. Authority is not something that deserves anything but contempt. It's one thing to listen to someone on the grounds of merit but that's not what authority means. Authority means you listen to somebody because they're in charge.

        Maybe it's a bad translation but I somehow doubt it. And in any case if you ask me contempt for authority is part of a healthy Democratic Republic

        • Ignorance among the youth, isn't new. Or even a derogatory statement for that matter. I've been living on this planet for many a decade now, and I'm still plenty ignorant about a lot of things. Ignorance goes hand in hand with youth quite often simply due to inexperience. Society often makes laws to protect the young and inexperienced because of this.

          Authority is not something that deserves anything but contempt.

          Contempt for authority is a possible outcome, but it needs to be justified. Otherwise, it's simply viewed as ignorant humans who fail to understand even w

        • "You've heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons."

      • This quote is most probably neither said by Socrates nor penned by Plato. See here
        https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/
        and here
        http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=315753

    • Those Tide pods, though. Bet they didn't see that coming.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DigitAl56K ( 805623 ) on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @06:00PM (#62778492)

    ... their parents watch television "almost constantly."

  • well not that old, 43, but yea youtube signed in so it mostly stays on topics I like, a long list of creators im subbed to and adblock, is my main form of video consumption

    TikTok ... well if I want to see a moron shove a tennis ball up their ass, I know where to go

    • Also guilty and older than you. Let's face it, YouTube is better than what is on TV. At least I think it is, there is no TV where I live unless I go with satellite, and they cost too much.

      Besides where on TV will you find Russian folk music? (Beloe Zlato.) And they even have a cooking series also with songs. But watch out for the translations of the captions. One clearly said "Friends, potatoes, and carrots are boiled in their skins." Best laugh I had that day.

  • Yes, my young son has YouTube running almost constantly. He opens the website, starts a video, and the playlist plays almost constantly along with ads.
    But he's not watching. How do I know this? He leaves it on in the room like us parents used to do with broadcast TV.

    His total viewing time is a teensy tiny percentage of run-time.

    • Which makes me only wonder why YouTube is even called "social" media. You could consume it just like you consume TV. It's not as if you need to log in, like you do with FB. Or am I one of the odd users? Am I using YouTube the wrong way?

      • I suppose it's social because it allows anyone to broadcast whatever they want. Some develop an audience, some do not.
        The features that come with signing in are kind of nice, but not necessary to consume. I don't know how monetization works, but based upon how much broadcasters ask for likes and follows, I can only guess "named" users earn the broadcasters more than "anonymous" viewers.

        • Plus one can leave immediate feedback via likes and comments. So, interactive TV. Or social TV, if you will.

          • That's setting the bar low. Many online publications have comments and likes sections after their articles. The level of moderation, of course, is much higher, for the comments at least.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kmoser ( 1469707 )
        The real question is what do they mean by "use" YouTube? I'd bet almost everyone on the Internet "uses" YouTube on a regular basis by watching the occasional video. In that sense, teens are probably not much different.

        • The real question is what do they mean by "use" YouTube?

          Right. You summed up what I wanted to say quite nicely.

  • there was a story on /. about kids in school and their phones being a problem. And yet most thought it was ok for kids to have phones in school. I guess the current curriculum is you tube now in school.

    • I just learned my high school (of 30 years+ ago) is banning cell phones during school periods and it's apparently causing an uproar. People are so overreactive. Try it for a semester. You can always go back.

      I'm of the age when the only cell phones in high school were a handful of the kids with rich dads who also bought them BMWs. We also has a designated smoking section back in the day which is quite a relic of the past.

      • I went to school a bit longer ago than you. And back then, passing a note during class between people got you in trouble. But then that was a time kids were afraid of teachers and not the current reversed state. And smoking, instant suspension.

    • It seems that having a phone "at school" is one thing. Using them in class is another. Have you seen any stories where kids refused to put them away in class without consequences?

  • Mirrors and cameras steal souls. What else is social media?

    • Mirrors for the narcissists, cameras for the exhibitionists. Social media conveniently combines the two for us!

  • Youtube! and TikTok once it was too much MTV, or Saturday morning cartoons, or video games (Atari, Coleco, Odyssey)... The shift from one to the other over the decades.

    JoshK.

  • That's just the tip of the iceberg (Score:3)

    by jklappenbach ( 824031 ) on Thursday August 11, 2022 @03:34AM (#62779344) Journal
    I'm in my 50's. I cut the cord years ago. I use youtube constantly, in the evenings, etc. Everything you'd ever want to watch from cable is there in limited form. Most of what I watch outside of the networks, etc, is actually higher quality, ranging from news, science, history, etc. I haven't explored sports at all, but I've never been interested in it. What you find is that for any interest, there are dozens, sometime hundreds of content creators who spend much more time taking deeper dives than cable news ever could. From space and rocketry, to computer science, to genetic research, to gaming, to consumer tech, to the entertainment industry, to cooking, there is a remarkable depth of talent and coverage on youtube. Beyond that, if you ever have a question about how to do anything, there's a youtube video showing you how.

    If this is all news to you, you have no idea of how that service has matured. It's really an incredible knowledgebase.

    • The key difference would be that sometimes you decide what to watch, then you turn it on and search

      vs

      You turn it on and let it decide for you.

  • US teens have mostly left FB/Meta, just leaving old farts on FB !

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