YouTube is dominating social networking use among teenagers, as Facebook fades from popularity, according to another survey. A Pew Research Center poll shows that 85 percent of US teens, ages 13 to 17, use YouTube, compared with 72 percent to the Facebook-owned Instagram and 69 percent for Snapchat. Use of the primary Facebook service is at 51 percent among adolescents, down from 71 percent in a 2014-2015 Pew poll. Pew did not speculate on a motive behind the drop, although historically, teens often shun services once they become mainstream — and utilized by their own parents.
Pew also says 95 percent of teens now have a smartphone or access to oneup from 73 percent during the previous survey. Pew also notes that 45% of teenagers say they use the net”almost always,” nearly double from the last survey. Many experts worry about using social media by younger users, though a lot of the criticism was directed at pre-teen audiences, such as a version of Facebook Messenger made for kids.
Pew researchers say there’s no clear consensus among teenagers on if these services are bad or good for them. Almost half of teens believe social media usage has a neutral impact, while 31 percent said it’s a favourable effect and 24 percent describe it as negative. Published this week, the poll of 743 teens was conducted March 7 to April 10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
