Instagram and YouTube are more popular among US teens than Facebook: Pew Research study

Facebook is no more the coolest **social media** platform and today almost everyone has access to smartphones. In the US, it has been found that teens are gravitating more towards YouTube or Instagram than Facebook. According to a survey by the Pew Research Centre, 51 percent of these teens aged between 13 to 17 years are more interested in YouTube or Instagram. [caption id=“attachment_4490843” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational Image. Reuters.[/caption] Nearly 85 percent and 72 percent teens choose to spend their time on YouTube and Instagram, respectively. Even Snapchat is used among 69 percent of these teens. However, Facebook stands fourth. This is followed by other social media sites such as Reddit, Tumblr amongst others. According to the research, there has been an increase in the number of teens who own a smartphone (95 percent) as compared to the teen population in 2014-15 which was 73 percent. This has been cited as the reason for the increased use of social media platforms. However, it must be noted that the survey also suggested that the lower income teens who do not have access to smartphones or computers gravitate towards Facebook , maybe because of its popularity, whereas those in the higher income group spend their time on Instagram and YouTube. Another insight from the study that emerged was that girls are more likely to use Snapchat, while boys mostly use YouTube. In fact 50 percent of girls are constantly on social media as against boys who are online 39 percent of the time.