In a survey of millennial consumers in the U.S., around ** percent of women said Instagram had the most influence on their shopping habits, compared to ** percent of the men surveyed. Younger millennials between the ages of 25 and 29 stated they were most influenced by more visual content-focused platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Meanwhile, those in their 30s and 40s said Facebook was the primary platform shaping their shopping behavior.

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 2023, Instagram claimed the top spot as the preferred social media platform for shopping among Gen Z and millennial consumers. However, Gen Z also showed an inclination towards shopping via TikTok, while millennials leaned towards both YouTube and Facebook over the trendy Chinese short-video platform. Conversely, older generations exhibited similar preferences for social commerce, with both favoring Facebook and YouTube over the more visually appealing Instagram and TikTok.

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.

A report held in June 2022 among Gen Z and millennials in the United States found that these consumers, aged 16 to 40 years old, were using Facebook most often, with ** percent saying they did so daily or more. LinkedIn, Twitch, and Nextdoor were the least used social sites for news, whereas YouTube and Instagram were used almost as often as Facebook in this respect.

According to a survey conducted in the United States in 2025, Millennials made up ** percent of social media users in the country. Overall, Generation Z accounted for ** percent of the United States' social media audience, and Generation X made up ** percent. Additionally, Baby boomers accounted for just **** percent of users.

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.

According to a survey run in Spain in March 2023, 86 percent of Millennial respondents used WhatsApp, making it the most popular social media platform in the country among that population group. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube followed closely, with an audience reach of 75 percent, 74 percent, and 73 percent respectively.

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.

As of 2020, ******** was the most popular social media platform among Gen Z and Millennials in the United States to connect to others. ****** and ******* ranked second and third, with respective shares of ** percent and ** percent of respondents using these social networks to connect to others.

According to a survey among internet users conducted in Vietnam by Decision Lab as of the third quarter of 2024, Facebook was considered the primary social media platform by ** percent of the Millennial respondents. Meanwhile, ** percent of them listed the Vietnamese platform Zalo as their primary app.

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 January 2021, 57 percent of 12 to 34 year olds in the United States were using Facebook, this is a decrease of seven percent on the previous year. Overall, 70 percent of those aged between 12 and 34 years were using Instagram, which is a two percent increase from 2020 and a four percent increase since 2019. As of 2021, Pinterest and LinkedIn both steadily increased their user base since 2019 amongst this age group in the United States. TikTok had the largest growth in audience, rising from 25 percent in 2020 to 44 percent in 2021.

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.

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.

During a 2022 survey in the United States, ** percent of responding millennial consumers stated that offers or promotions posted on social media channels created a positive brand perception. According to ** percent of respondents, memes and jokes posted by brands achieved that purpose, too.

******** 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.

A 2024 global survey explored what Gen Z and millennial travelers thought of destinations they visited after seeing it on social media or promoted by an influencer. While ** percent of the sample mentioned that the destination was somewhat better than expected, ********* said that it was just as they had imagined it. Meanwhile, only **** percent of respondents mentioned that the visited travel destination was somewhat worse than expected.

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.

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.