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Nearly Half of US Teens Are Online 'Constantly' (apnews.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly," according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The report was based on a survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024. The Associated Press reports: As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used -- 90% said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day. There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%.

This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it's not enough to be truly meaningful. X saw the biggest decline among teenage users. Only 17% of teenagers said they use X, down from 23% in 2022, the year Elon Musk bought the platform. Reddit held steady at 14%. About 6% of teenagers said they use Threads, Meta's answer to X that launched in 2023. [...]

Meta's messaging service WhatsApp was a rare exception in that it saw the number of teenage users increase, to 23% from 17% in 2022. Pew also asked kids how often they use various online platforms. Small but significant numbers said they are on them âoealmost constantly.â For YouTube, 15% reported constant use, for TikTok, 16% and for Snapchat, 13%.
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Nearly Half of US Teens Are Online 'Constantly'

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  • I don't know their ages, but I've driven by many people staring down at and tapping on their phones while (a) walking on the sidewalk, often with their dogs; and (b) riding bicycles no-hands on the sidewalk and in the street. The latter two seem like a recipe for disaster or, at least, reason to have a dash-cam. In related news, I've also seen people reading books and fold-out maps while driving cars and motorcyclists smoking with a full-face helmet on.

  • I was trolling my buddies on AIM over dialup while their fathers were still in elementary school.

  • To anyone who doesn't own their own personal automobile. And the extremely high cost of those these days means most teenagers don't have easy access to one. I couldn't afford to get a car for my kid until they hit college and it wasn't really practical for them to spend 90 minutes on a bus one way to go hang out with some friends.

    Suburbs are incredibly isolating. They make for a miserable existence pretty much all around and as an added bonus they're not economically sustainable. But they are absolute

    • People like cars dude get over it ...And you still should keep the wrong sorts of people out.

      • People like cars dude get over it ...And you still should keep the wrong sorts of people out.

        Kids don't like cars, for the most part. My friends' kids have zero interest in ever owning a car. They see no point to travel, even for vacations. "I can see it all on my computer. Why would I leave home?" They want older folks to drive them to their jobs and to school. They would use public transport, if it were available in a convenient location. But none of them seem at all interested in even learning how to drive. It holds no appeal to them. The electronic devices are far more interesting to them than

  • What's the alternative? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was online constantly when I was a teenager, and that was over 20 years ago.

    Honestly the only reason I'm not online constantly now is because I don't like what the internet has become. As an adult I have the disposable income and the freedom to do other things.

    I'm not sure what people expect teens to do instead. (There's always this idea that being online constantly is bad, but never any suggestions - at least not realistic ones - on what people should do instead.) Teenagers are at an in-between pla

    • I'm not sure what people expect teens to do instead.

      For us it was lots of camping, beach parties, alcohol, drugs, loud music.....

      Mostly, all activities strongly associated with sex and ...well... opportunities for said sex.

      Because pretending there is *anything* on this planet that will distract a teen from thinking about sex is delusional farkwittery of the pearl-cluthing variety

    • I was online constantly when I was a teenager, and that was over 20 years ago. Honestly the only reason I'm not online constantly now is because I don't like what the internet has become. As an adult I have the disposable income and the freedom to do other things. I'm not sure what people expect teens to do instead. (There's always this idea that being online constantly is bad, but never any suggestions - at least not realistic ones - on what people should do instead.) Teenagers are at an in-between place where just going outside to play, or staying inside and playing with toys isn't fun anymore like it is for children, but they're not allowed the freedom to do fun activities or go to fun places (either by their parents, or by society). Everywhere that teens use to go has either closed down or banned unattended teens and groups of teens. And if there is somewhere to go, many people don't allow their kids go anywhere unless they (the parent) are driving them (the teen), which means a parent's availability and willingness has to line up with the time of whatever the thing is, and friends would have to have their parents' availability and willingness line up with each other. (It's difficult if you have one teen, impossible if you have multiple.) And if they stay home, how can they stay offline? Instead of TV, we watch things online now. If I want to read a book, I go online and get an ebook from the library. Listening to music, most teens do that online now (and even when I was a teen I downloaded the majority of music I acquired). One of my kids (my kids are all teenagers and adults) likes to draw, but they often do that while in a discord "call", so they're still online. One of my kids likes to play offline games sometimes, but he'll often have a youtube video going at the same time. ...Actually come to think of it, sometimes when I'm doing an offline activity I'll have a youtube video going or music streaming, so I guess I'm still online then. And any new thing that a person gets into, in this day and age, it's probably going to involve going online. Learning about the thing is probably done online. Finding places to do the thing is probably done online. Finding other people that do the thing, socializing with them, planning gatherings etc. is done online. Maybe there are offline classes or meetups but where do you find out about that? Online. Is that bad? And what's the alternative if so?

      We've decided as a society that the world is too scary to allow teenagers full access to it. When some of us were growing up (GenXer here), we were expected to stay *OUT* of the house most of the time. I keep being told by my associates that it's a different world than it was when we grew up. I don't know that it really is. The online life combined with the need for a 24/7 news cycle filled with the dregs of humanity and any story of fear it can project has made us scared of everything, even each other. Tha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        Totally agree with this. But as a parent it's a network effect problem. There is not a critical mass of other kids available to hang out with out of the house, so my kids end up spending a lot of time online as well because that's where all their peer are.

        • Totally agree with this. But as a parent it's a network effect problem. There is not a critical mass of other kids available to hang out with out of the house, so my kids end up spending a lot of time online as well because that's where all their peer are.

          We had an intern a few years back that was straight out of hi-school. He was bitching about how much time he *had to* spend on Instagram. I asked him who told him he had to spend time on it. His response?

          "Society, man."

          Apparently it's the only alternative we give kids, and once they're on their own they can't imagine any others.

  • https://www.pewresearch.org/in... [pewresearch.org] /. should link to the actual study in the summary.

    It found that boys and girls use social media in about the same percentages and number of times a day.

    Kudos to the Associated Press for reporting the survey results and not bringing in a set of questionable stereotypes, 'expert opinions', or 'slanted research' about different demographic groups to link them to extremism, negative behavior, etc.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    The association fallacy is a formal logical falla

  • TFS reminded me of this story. [theonion.com]

  • We're almost all "online constantly". There may still be some people who run entirely on copper wire and dial-up modems but, that can't be common. In the last decade, I've only been offline twice, due to hurricanes taking out power AND internet AND cell phone service. It reeked.

  • Me? (Score:2)

    by antdude ( 79039 )

    I guess I am a teen again.

  • I use the internet , mainly for work, ill watch probably 45 minutes per day on average of some streaming service, I do 30 minutes or so of general browsing a day, usually a little News, checking the stocks, a couple longer sessions when doing research for a project. But, what the heck is everyone doing online all the time. I had surgery last year which really minimized my mobility for a week. After the first day I was done with the internet for the week, less NetFlix. Besides just watching videos and playin

  • Basic calculations and unit conversions, replaced by search engines (because their app UIs suck so badly and takes longer to use than a search engine).
    Reference texts (dictionary, encyclopedia, etc...), replaced by online versions.
    Manual surveying (like size of lawn), replaced by online GIS services.
    Searching stores for specific items, replaced by online shopping.
    Watching TV (shows, news, weather), replaced by streaming.
    Educational content, replaced by online videos and blogs.
    Learning your laws, replaced by

  • Parents are part of the problem (Score:3)

    by flink ( 18449 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @11:28AM (#65010695)

    My son is 8, so not a teen yet, but I've observed this problem with my 13 year old daughter as well.

    Parents no longer really let their kids out to play unsupervised anymore. All the kids are either hyper committed to structured scheduled activities like sports, dance/music lessons, or after school camps, or else kept in the house. Even with my wife I've had to fight to allow the kids out to roam the neighborhood unsupervised because she feels the social pressure not to be seen as neglectful. And when they do go out they complain that there is no one else out there to play with. And schools no longer allow kids to hop on a friend's bus and go to their house after school, even with a note from a parent, so even if I want to arrange a "play date", he has to come all the way home and then one of us has to leave work to drive him to a friend's house.

    So the main social interaction they get on week days other than activities I have to pay for is chatting with friends online or playing online games like minecraft together. When I was a kid I'd walk out my door and there would be 5-10 kids out playing soccer, baseball, or fishing, or playing tag, or as teens just hanging around, but it's just not like that anymore. Makes me feel super old, but it just is what it is.

    • YES!
      Also, not that malls were good but they killed themselves off in the 90s by alienating the youth and forcing them out of the malls over "security" and "gangs" which weren't even a problem. Those teens had no positive attachment as they grew up and refused to return to the mall, instead wanting to drive up to each store front if not browse online entirely. The aspects that differentiated that model were diminished ahead of their dire need to survive.

      I say this as a non-consumer who didn't understand why

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