As of February 2025, ** percent of the YouTube global audience was composed of male users aged between 25 and 34 years, as well as around *** percent of female users of the same age. Male users aged between 35 and 44 years on the platform accounted for **** percent of the total, while women of the same age using YouTube had an audience share of *** percent in the examined period. YouTube’s global popularity The number of monthly active users on YouTube reached almost *** billion in April 2024, making it the second most popular social network on the internet. The platform's popularity spans all over the world, with India and the United States having the largest YouTube audiences. As of April 2024, the audience of YouTube in India was around *** million, while the United States recorded a YouTube audience of around *** million users.

YouTube’s digital revenues One of YouTube's leading monetization methods include advertising, with the company generating around **** billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2024. Additionally, the platform generated over ** million dollars in the United States through in-app purchases, as well as over **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from mobile app users in Japan.

In Australia in 2022, ***** percent of female YouTube users were aged between 18 and 24, and ***** percent of male users were aged between 25 and 34. Well over **** of the platform's user base were aged between 18 and 34.

A survey conducted during the third quarter of 2024 found that over ** percent of ****** internet users aged between ** and ** years watched vlogs. Overall, ***** were more likely to watch vlogs worldwide than ***. Vlogs are an online video genre that gained popularity in the 2010s, thanks to platforms like YouTube. Vlogs are also a popular video format for influencers, with this type of video content reporting a global usage reach of approximately **** percent in the same examined period.

The increasing popularity and use of digital platforms and social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are opening up new opportunities for children, young people and adults to pursue cultural interests or to stage themselves aesthetically. If we focus on young people between the ages of 12 and 19, a number of studies on media use show that YouTube in particular has become the leading medium for this age group. Given the growth in importance of this web video platform, questions arise about the receptive and productive content of experience and the significance of cultural content and practices. Furthermore, there are hardly any findings on the extent to which YouTube stimulates young people to engage in cultural activities and self-organized learning processes. The sample is composed of n=818 adolescents aged 12-19 years. The selection of the study units was based on a quota procedure. The adolescent target subjects were recruited via the IFAK interviewer staff according to predefined quotas for age, gender, region, place size class, type of school attended (for students), and occupation (for non-students). The characteristics "age and gender" and "region and place size" were crossed or combined with each other to produce as accurate a representation of the population as possible. The characteristic "migration background" was not used as a quota characteristic. The specifications for this are based on the latest data from the Federal Statistical Office and ma Radio 2018 II. The structural composition of the sample corresponds to the data for the population according to the characteristics mentioned. The study was conducted as a face-to-face oral survey. The answers of the young people were recorded by an interviewer on a laptop via a corresponding survey program. 111 face-to-face interviewers from the in-house interviewing staff, who have experience in interviewing children and adolescents, were used. The predefined questionnaire was binding for all interviewers with regard to the wording and sequence of questions. The maximum number of interviews per interviewer was n=10. Each interviewer received a detailed written briefing on the project at the beginning of the study. Die zunehmende Verbreitung und Nutzung digitaler Plattformen und sozialer Medien wie z. B. WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube oder Instagram eröffnen Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen neue Möglichkeiten, kulturellen Interessen nachzugehen oder sich ästhetisch zu inszenieren. Richtet man seinen Blick auf Jugendliche im Alter von 12 bis 19 Jahren, so zeigt eine Reihe von Studien zur Mediennutzung, dass sich insbesondere YouTube zum Leitmedium dieser Altersgruppe entwickelt hat. Angesichts des Bedeutungszuwachses dieser Webvideo-Plattform stellen sich Fragen nach den rezeptiven und produktiven Erfahrungsgehalten sowie der Bedeutung kultureller Inhalte und Praktiken. Weiterhin existieren kaum Erkenntnisse darüber, inwiefern YouTube die Jugendlichen zu kulturellen Aktivitäten und selbstorganisierten Lernprozessen anregt. Die Stichprobe setzt sich aus n=818 Jugendlichen im Alter von 12-19 Jahren zusammen. Die Auswahl der Untersuchungseinheiten erfolgte auf der Grundlage eines Quotenverfahrens. Die Rekrutierung der jugendlichen Zielpersonen erfolgte über den IFAK-Interviewerstab nach vorgegeben Quoten für Alter, Geschlecht, Region, Ortsgrößenklasse, besuchter Schultyp (bei Schülern) und Berufstätigkeit (bei Nicht-Schülern). Dabei wurden die Merkmale „Alter und Geschlecht“ sowie „Region und Ortsgröße“ gekreuzt bzw. miteinander kombiniert, um ein möglichst genaues Abbild der Grundgesamtheit herzustellen.Das Merkmal „Migrationshintergrund“ wurde nicht als Quotierungsmerkmal herangezogen. Die Vorgaben hierfür basieren auf den aktuellsten Angaben des Statistischen Bundesamtes und der ma Radio 2018 II. Die strukturelle Zusammensetzung der Stichprobe entspricht nach den genannten Merkmalen den Daten für die Grundgesamtheit. Die Studie wurde als persönlich-mündliche Befragung durchgeführt. Die Antworten der Jugendlichen wurden dabei über ein entsprechendes Befragungsprogramm von einem Interviewer auf einem Laptop erfasst. Zum Einsatz kamen 111 face-to-face Interviewer aus dem hauseigenen Interviewerstab, die Erfahrungen mit der Befragung von Kindern und Jugendlichen haben. Der vorgegebene Fragebogen war im Hinblick auf Wortlaut und Reihenfolge der Fragen für alle Interviewer verbindlich. Die maximale Anzahl an Interviews pro Interviewer lag bei n=10. Jeder Interviewer erhielt zu Beginn der Studie eine detaillierte schriftliche Einweisung in das Projekt.

Weighted frequency of marketing techniques used in all posts featuring food products/brands on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok between June 1, 2021, and May 31, 2022, posted by the top three most popular SMIs with adolescent males and females aged 13–17.

Weighted frequencies of collected food product/brand related posts on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok between June 1, 2021, and May 31, 2022, posted by the top three most popular SMIs with adolescent males and females aged 13–17.

As of February 2025, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook's largest audience, accounting for 18.5 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second-largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years. Facebook connects the world Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

As of April 2024, around 16.5 percent of global active Instagram users were men between the ages of 18 and 24 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide was aged 34 years or younger.

              Teens and social media

              As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2020, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, second to Snapchat and TikTok. Instagram was one of the most influential advertising channels among female Gen Z users when making purchasing decisions. Teens report feeling more confident, popular, and better about themselves when using social media, and less lonely, depressed and anxious.
              Social media can have negative effects on teens, which is also much more pronounced on those with low emotional well-being. It was found that 35 percent of teenagers with low social-emotional well-being reported to have experienced cyber bullying when using social media, while in comparison only five percent of teenagers with high social-emotional well-being stated the same. As such, social media can have a big impact on already fragile states of mind.

As of January 2024, Instagram was slightly more popular with men than women, with men accounting for 50.6 percent of the platform’s global users. Additionally, the social media app was most popular amongst younger audiences, with almost 32 percent of users aged between 18 and 24 years.

              Instagram’s Global Audience

              As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social media platform globally, reaching two billion monthly active users (MAU). This number is projected to keep growing with no signs of slowing down, which is not a surprise as the global online social penetration rate across all regions is constantly increasing.
              As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with 362.9 million users, followed by the United States with 169.7 million users.

              Who is winning over the generations?

              Even though Instagram’s audience is almost twice the size of TikTok’s on a global scale, TikTok has shown itself to be a fierce competitor, particularly amongst younger audiences. TikTok was the most downloaded mobile app globally in 2022, generating 672 million downloads. As of 2022, Generation Z in the United States spent more time on TikTok than on Instagram monthly.