Introduction

Millennials On Social Media Statistics: Since the lockdown, people who never existed on the internet have created accounts on social media. As stated in these Millennials On Social Media Statistics, more than 50% of millennial users went online. The use of social media is increasing daily. Social media is gaining popularity not only among millennials but also among other generations.

However, the use of these platforms is growing extensively among all generations. These statistics guide recent insights, including the preferences for product research on social media, back-to-school shopping, etc.Â

As of September 2024 in the United Kingdom, 98 percent of Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2012, were using social media. The same was true for 97 percent of millennials in the country. Overall, 92 percent of Gen X were on social networks, as were 86 percent of Baby boomers.

As of February 2021, 71 percent of U.S. adults aged between 18 and 29 years used the photo sharing app Instagram. Furthermore, it was found that 44 percent of female adults in the United States used Instagram compared to only 36 percent of adult men.

Instagram usage in the United States Instagram is one of the most popular social networks in the United States with a 40 percent usage reach among the adult population. Social media juggernaut Facebook has a 68 percent population reach. Whereas Facebook and Snapchat usage are projected to either decline or stagnate until 2021, Instagram user engagement is estimated to increase from 26 to 29 minutes per day. The number of Instagram users in the United States is also set to keep growing over the coming years – in 2019, there were approximately 107.2 million monthly active U.S. Instagram users with forecasts estimating almost 120.3 million monthly users in 2023.

Teens and Instagram Instagram usage is also widely spread among teenagers in the United States: in 2018, three quarters of female U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 years accessed the social network, along with 69 percent of male teens. The social network is more popular among older teens than younger ones, although this may simply be due to parental restrictions around smartphone usage and media consumption.

WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube ranked as the most popular social media for Dutch Millennials or 20-to-39-year-olds in 2020, beating, for example, Instagram. In 2020, roughly 90 percent of the Millennial respondents in the Netherlands said they used WhatsApp. Facebook was also popular, with 82 percent indicating they actively used this platform. Both social networks had over ten million users in the country, of which 9.1 million were daily users for WhatsApp and 6.8 million for Facebook.

Millennials are less active on Facebook

Despite that Facebook ranks as the second-most popular social media platform, the Silicon Valley application experienced upheaval in the Netherlands. In a different question asked by the source, 57 percent of the Millennials agreed with a statement that said they spent less time on Facebook than they used to. Privacy concerns were one possible explanation for this. Some respondents also mentioned, though, that the platform had become too time-consuming and would rather spend it on “real life” activities.

Instagram and Snapchat a gateway to Generation Z, not Millennials

Are Dutch Millennials leaving Facebook then for other social networks, such as Instagram or Snapchat? The ranking provided here does to indicate that the 23-to-37-year-olds are part of the user base of the two photo apps. Data looking at the growing penetration rate of the two platforms by different age groups in the Netherlands confirms this. This same data does mention, though, that consumers aged 15-19 used the apps a lot more. Between 2015 and 2018, Instagram’s penetration rate among Generation Z increased by roughly 25 percentage points whilst the youngest generation was the first in the Netherlands to use Snapchat.

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...

Social media was by far the most popular news platform among 18 to 34-year-olds in the United States, with 47 percent of respondents to a survey held in August 2022 saying that they used social networks for news on a daily basis. By comparison, adults over 65 years old mostly used network news to keep up to date.

The decline of newspapers In the past, the reasons to regularly go out and purchase a print newspaper were many. Used not only for news but also apartment hunting, entertainment, and job searches (among other things), newspapers once served multiple purposes. This is no longer the case, with first television and then the internet taking care of consumer needs once covered by printed papers. Indeed, the paid circulation of daily weekday newspapers in the United States has fallen dramatically since the 1980s with no sign of future improvement.

News consumption habits

A survey on news consumption by gender found that 50 percent of women use either online-only news sites or social media for news each day, and 51 percent of male respondents said the same. Social media was by far the most used daily news platform among U.S. Millennials, and the same was true of Gen Z. One appeal of online news is that it often comes at no cost to the consumer. Paying for news found via digital outlets is not yet commonplace in the United States, with only 21 percent of U.S. consumers responding to a study held in early 2021 reporting having paid for online news content in the last year.

Introduction

Gen Z Statistics: Gen Z, iGeneration, or Post-millennials are individuals born between the mid-90s and early 2010s. However, many sources have yet to confirm their dates. This generation experienced growing up entirely in the digital era. Therefore, their behavior, thinking, and habits are different from those of other generations.

Surprisingly, it is easier to find a Gen Z with an internet connection, social media, or smartphone. These recent Gen Z Statistics confirm that these people prefer peace of mind and work-life balance and are more educated compared to other generations. These people are diverse in thinking. Therefore, it is difficult to understand their generations, as they are flexible towards everything.Â

The statistic presents information on the leading news sources according to consumers aged 15 to 25 in the United States as of the third quarter of 2017. During the survey, it was found that 35 percent of respondents used social media as their primary news source.

The statistic shows information on the attitudes of influencer marketing audiences towards social media influencers worldwide as of February 2018, by age group. It was discovered that 57 percent of respondents aged between 18 and 24 years said they shared the same passion or interests with influencers, whereas the same was true for only 47 percent of respondents between the ages of 25 and 34.

As of September 2018, 21 percent of U.S. Twitter users were between 25 and 34 years old. Furthermore, 55 to 64 year olds accounted for the same amount of U.S. Twitter audiences. A separate study from April 2019 shows that the majority of U.S. Twitter users in the United States were male. Twitter users in the United States While constantly standing in the shadow of more popular social networking services Facebook or Instagram, Twitter is one of the biggest social networks worldwide. In 2019, it was found that 22 percent of adults in the United States used the microblogging service, down from 24 percent in the previous year. The United States was also the online market with the biggest Twitter audiences, ahead of Japan and the United Kingdom. Twitter reported 68 million monthly active Twitter users in the United States as of the first quarter of 2019. Twitter marketing Twitter is also a popular platform for marketers to promote their businesses. During a 2018 survey, 62 percent of responding global marketers stated that they used Twitter for marketing purposes. However, according to internet users in the United States, the platform ranked behind all other social media platforms in terms of shopping influence.

According to data collected during the first quarter of 2020, adults aged 18 to 34 spent more time browsing the web via smartphone than any other age group in the United States. Overall media consumption was highest among adults aged 50 to 64 during that period. Traditional media Traditional media is gradually losing its appeal to younger, more tech-savvy generations. While television consumption is highest among adults who have not grown up with the internet or other digital channels, young Millennials and Gen Z tend to prefer non-linear forms of news and entertainment. Data on the median age of media users in the U.S. showed that the average age of TV viewers and print magazine readers was higher than that of internet users in 2020, and similar generational trends can be observed in many digitally developed markets globally. Impact of COVID-19 on media usage The onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic boosted media consumption across the United States and worldwide in 2020. While the average time spent with traditional media increased for the first time in over a decade, digital media consumption saw a particularly impressive spike that year due to remote working and schooling setups. In the following years, the gap between traditional and digital media consumption is expected to widen even further.

In 2019, younger generations in Belgium were much more likely to use social media on a near daily basis than their older counterparts. ********** of the respondents between 16 and 24 years old that used the Internet to participate in social networks for private reasons did so either every day or almost every day. According to this survey, the majority of Belgians across all ages checked their social media at least once a day. It was with Gen Z and Millennials, however, where this happened the most.

Cable TV news consumption is on the decline. Adults aged between 18 and 34 years old were the least likely to use cable TV networks as a source of news, with a survey held in the United States in August 2022 revealing that 45 percent never did so. Younger consumers preferred social media sites for keeping up to date, and whilst their older peers turned to cable news more frequently, network news was still a more popular daily news source.

Falling cable news ratings

Back in 2017, FOX News, the leading cable news network in the United States, had an average of almost 470 thousand viewers in the primetime demo. With the exception of 2020 where news consumption soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, ratings have fallen consecutively each year, and by 2022, FOX’s average viewer count sank to 341 thousand. CNN and MSNBC saw even greater drops in their audiences, with the latter seeing its ratings fall by more than 2.5 times between 2017 and 2022.

Why the drop in ratings?

Cable and satellite TV is no longer the norm: only adults aged 60 or above express a preference for traditional TV over video streaming services and apps, and among certain age groups the share who preferred the latter was over 70 percent. Indeed, a 2022 survey found that the majority of Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X did not have a cable subscription. The main reason for cutting the cord was price, with over a third of adults saying that cable was simply too expensive.

YouTube was the social media platform with the biggest reach among U.S. Gen Z and Millennial internet users regardless of gender. During the September 2019 survey, 95 percent of male and 92 percent of female respondents stated that they used the online video platform. In contrast, Facebook had a 70 and 78 percent reach respectively.

During a survey carried out in 2023, eight percent of responding consumers from the United States said that the majority of digital ads they saw were very relevant to them; another 36 called them somewhat relevant. Online ad attitudes in the United States In the second quarter of 2018, almost sixty percent of U.S. internet users aged 56 and over held a negative viewpoint towards ads on websites. In contrast, only about thirty-five percent of users aged 26 to 35 had the same negative opinion. When it came to online video ads in the same quarter, each of the age groups felt more negatively towards them. Just over forty percent of internet users between the ages of 26 and 35 disliked video ads, and the same was true for just over seventy percent of the oldest users. Internet ad spending worldwide Display advertising, which includes online video and social media ads, was the largest internet advertising format worldwide in 2018. Over 140 billion U.S. dollars was spent on display ads that year. This format is expected to remain on top, as it is estimated to surpass 200 billion U.S. dollars in advertising spending by 2021.

Gen Z women are more likely than Gen Z men to make purchases via social media in the United States and the United Kingdom. At least ** percent of female respondents in that generation had experienced buying a product on social networks as of January 2022, while the male usage rate stood at ** percent. Discovering new brands via social media or visiting brands' social media stores was also more popular among Gen Z women than their male counterparts.

In 2024, more than ** percent of global consumers belonging to Generation Z used social media for customer service proposes, while ** percent of Millennials did the same. Moreover, *** out of five Boomers participated in live shopping events on social media platforms.

A 2022 survey found that younger consumers were most likely to use social media as a news source, with 50 percent of Gen Z and 44 percent of millennials reporting daily usage. By contrast, 43 percent of Boomers said that they never used social networks for news.

During a 2024 survey, 77 percent of respondents from Nigeria stated that they used social media as a source of news. In comparison, just 23 percent of Japanese respondents said the same. Large portions of social media users around the world admit that they do not trust social platforms either as media sources or as a way to get news, and yet they continue to access such networks on a daily basis.

              Social media: trust and consumption

              Despite the majority of adults surveyed in each country reporting that they used social networks to keep up to date with news and current affairs, a 2018 study showed that social media is the least trusted news source in the world. Less than 35 percent of adults in Europe considered social networks to be trustworthy in this respect, yet more than 50 percent of adults in Portugal, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia said that they got their news on social media.

              What is clear is that we live in an era where social media is such an enormous part of daily life that consumers will still use it in spite of their doubts or reservations. Concerns about fake news and propaganda on social media have not stopped billions of users accessing their favorite networks on a daily basis.
              Most Millennials in the United States use social media for news every day, and younger consumers in European countries are much more likely to use social networks for national political news than their older peers.
              Like it or not, reading news on social is fast becoming the norm for younger generations, and this form of news consumption will likely increase further regardless of whether consumers fully trust their chosen network or not.

As of November 2022, a survey of global Generation Z social media users had ** percent of respondents state that social media had a positive impact on their self-expression, whilst ** percent reported it had a positive impact on their social connectivity. Overall, one in **** Gen Z users said social media had a negative effect on their self-confidence and self-esteem.