According to a survey conducted in the United States between July 2023 and June 2024, 65 percent of Generation Z were using Meta's Instagram, and 63 percent were using YouTube. Moreover, 58 percent of Gen Z in the United States were on TikTok, and 56 percent were using Facebook.

As of September 2023, YouTube as the most popular social media platform for global users, with 97 percent of respondents reporting to use the popular video platform. YouTube was also the most popular social media among Gen Z users, with 96 percent of respondents in this age group reporting to have used the video platform as of the examined period. Facebook's usage kept steady among among the general digital population, with around eight in 10 reporting to have used the platform. In comparison, the social media's popularity was in free fall among gen Z users with only four in 10 among those surveyed reporting to engage with the Meta-powered platform.

In 2021, messaging and video sharing platform Snapchat was more popular than TikTok among Gen Z users in the United States. TikTok counted around 37 million users who were born between 1997 and 2012, while Instagram reported around 33 million users in the same period. Snapchat, which counted 42 million Gen Z users, is projected to reach 49.5 million users in the examined demographic by 2025. Overall, platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit had significantly less users amongst this age group.

Picture a high school hallway during lunch break. Heads down, thumbs scrolling, earbuds in. This isn’t boredom, it’s engagement. For Generation Z, social media isn’t just a way to stay connected; it’s how they navigate identity, find entertainment, and even make purchasing decisions. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z...

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents used the ********* mobile app daily as of October 2022. Approximately ***** in ** respondents reported using social video app TikTok and YouTube on a daily basis, respectively. New social app app BeReal, which prompts users to post content once per day, was used by less than ***** in ** respondents aged between 16 and 24 years.

A 2023 survey conducted in Indonesia found that more than **** of Generation Z respondents frequently used Instagram. Furthermore, about ** percent of female respondents used TikTok frequently, compared to ** percent of male respondents.

In 2021, messaging and video sharing platform Snapchat was more popular than TikTok among Gen Z users in the United States. TikTok counted around 37 million users who were born between 1997 and 2012, while Instagram reported around 33 million users in the same period. Snapchat, which counted 42 million Gen Z users, is projected to reach 49.5 million users in the examined demographic by 2025. Overall, platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter and Reddit had significantly less users amongst this age group.

In 2024, some ** percent of Generation Z survey respondents in the United States and the United Kingdom stated that their most valuable social platform for food recommendations was TikTok. Instagram was the second most valuable platform for Generation Z.

According to a survey conducted in the United States between July 2023 and June 2024, almost half of all Generation Z social media users had used such platforms to send private messages in the previous 4 weeks. Overall, 45 percent of respondents said they had recently commented on posts, and 40 percent had posted pictures, videos, texts, or status updates.

******** was the most popular social media platform for Gen Z, or 15-to-19-year-olds, in the Netherlands in 2020, with nearly all respondents using the service. This according to domestic survey information. The ********* service already ranked as the Netherlands' overall most popular social medium in terms of users. YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat were also very popular, all reaching a penetration rate of over ** percent. Karaoke app TikTok, on the other hand, was much less popular, as only ** percent of them used the video application. Why is TikTok low in this ranking? Chinese video and sing-along application TikTok, formerly Musical.ly, made a global name as being one of the most popular smartphone apps for Generation Z. Here, it seemingly ranks low as the source used ages ** and up. This age group might potentially fall outside TikTok’s user base. While there is no data for the Netherlands that investigates the age groups below **, download numbers suggest the app grew in popularity in the Netherlands after Bytedance (TikTok’s owner) merged Musical.ly and TikTok in August 2018. A clash of generations Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gen Z uses Instagram and Snapchat much more often than their Millennial counterparts (defined by the source as 20-to 39-year olds). Interestingly, Pinterest was also more popular among the younger generation. The picture gallery app does not rank among the most popular apps in the Netherlands, reaching less than **** million people in 2019. Facebook, on the other hand, was more preferred by Millennials than it was by Generation Z.

Younger generations—specifically, millennials and Gen Z—increasingly turn to social media for personal finance purposes, such as making and receiving payments, crowdfunding, shopping, and financial education. While the financial tools provided by social media offer benefits, such as convenience and community, they also come with risks, such as increased fraud and misinformation.

More than **** of consumers belonging to Generation Z bought something on social media platforms, according to a survey in 2024. Almost a ***** of overall consumers bought on social media platforms. The consumer experience In a 2023 survey, Facebook and Instagram were the social media platforms offering the best shopping experience. To gain deeper insights into the elements constituting a satisfactory social commerce shopping journey from the user's viewpoint, key factors shaping consumers' heightened engagement with social commerce included, but were not limited to, deals and discounts, seamless purchasing processes, exclusive offers, and increased availability of customer reviews. Social shopping destinations Facebook is the leading social commerce platform globally, except among Gen Z, who favor Instagram and TikTok. However, the types of social media accounts that shoppers followed and purchased from varied by age group. Gen Z and Millennials predominantly bought from brand accounts, with Gen Z also showing a preference for social media influencers. Conversely, Gen X and Boomers preferred purchasing from trusted retailer accounts.

According to a 2023 survey, ** percent of users of social media platform users in Brazil were Millennials. Among these platforms, Tumblr and Twitch had the youngest audiences, as with ** percent and ** percent of each app were from Generation Z. Meanwhile, Reddit and Snapchat were more popular among Millennial users than the average of other researched networks.

According to a survey conducted in the United States in July 2022,**************s of Gen Z adults had used ******* in the past month at least once a day, and ** percent had used the platform at least once a week. For TikTok, ** percent of respondents said they had used the platform every day within the past month. Additionally, ** percent of Gen Z adults said they had not used LinkedIn, and ** percent reported the same for Clubhouse.

According to a January 2023 study of iOS users in the United States, 92 percent of Gen Z users aged between 16 and 25 years used YouTube. Instagram and TikTok followed, with 85 percent and 78 percent of U.S. Gen Z users, respectively. Communication and VoIP platform Discord was used by 42 percent of surveyed U.S. users aged between 16 and 25 years.

When asked which social media platform they had used for shopping and/or product discovery in the past month, more than half of surveyed U.S. Gen Z respondents cited TikTok and Instagram. Furthermore, nearly three in ten mentioned TikTok as their go-to platform for these activities, while 23 percent chose Instagram.

According to a survey conducted in the United States in August 2024, 50 percent of Generation Z adults stated that they wished social network X (formerly Twitter) had never been invented, and 47 percent reported feeling the same about TikTok. Overall, one in 5 users said they wish the smartphone had never been invented.

In August 2022, social media users aged between 18 and 24 years in the United States spent over ***** minutes on average watching content on YouTube. TikTok was the second most used platform for Gen Z users in the U.S., generating *** minutes on average in engagement during the examined month. Instagram ranked third, with *** minutes spent by Gen Z users on the popular photo and video-sharing platform.

According to a survey in Spain in March 2023, ** percent of Generation Z respondents used WhatsApp, making it the most popular social media platform in the country among that population group. Instagram followed closely, with an audience reach of ** percent, then YouTube and TikTok, each used by ** percent and ** percent of Gen Z respondents.

In August 2025, X, formerly known as Twitter, held a market share of around 34.83 percent in Hong Kong's social media scene in terms of pageviews across all devices, followed by Facebook and YouTube. The American social news and discussion website Reddit has gained traction since the anti-government protests in the city in 2020. Facebook is losing ground A few years before 2017, Facebook controlled over 80 percent of the social media arena in Hong Kong. The drastic change started in 2018, when the networking site lost nearly 11 percentage points and another 19 percentage points in the following year. For many Gen Z and Millennials in the financial hub, Instagram became the favorite social media platform and YouTube was used more often than Facebook. Facebook was still the second place to go after Instagram for product research, it has been losing its appeal among young users and advertisers. Platforms claiming the new spots When it came to advertising audience size, X took the lead. YouTube came in second, however, its ad reach in Hong Kong was among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. In comparison, the fourth placeholder Instagram has been picking up steam, reaching 4.14 percent of internet users in Hong Kong. However, the biggest industry threat was TikTok, the most downloaded social media app in Hong Kong as of the time of writing. TikTok’s rising popularity among teenage users may probably change the game of video consumption.