NEW YORK—Successful indie retailers and ECPs know that social media is playing a large role in building a business’ image and enhances connections to existing and prospective customers. It can be helpful to look at the broader trends among social media users to help independents fine-tine their presence on the platforms. The share of U.S. adults who say they use certain online platforms or apps is statistically unchanged from where it stood in early 2018 despite a long stretch of controversies over privacy, fake news and censorship on social media, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2019.

Pew Research Center’s Andrew Perrin and Monica Anderson report that Facebook and YouTube continue to be the most widely used platforms by U.S. adults, although Instagram is on the rise and others like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Twitter are relatively flat.

The age demographics do shift dramatically among age and gender breakouts, the Pew authors reported.


More broadly, the steady growth in adoption that social platforms have experienced in the U.S. over the past decade also appears to be slowing. The shares of adults who say they use Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter are largely the same as in 2016, with only Instagram showing an uptick in use during this time period. (There are no comparable 2016 phone survey data for YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp or Reddit.)

Facebook—which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary—remains one of the most widely used social media sites among adults in the U.S. Roughly 7 in 10 adults (69 percent) said they ever use the platform. (A separate 2018 Center survey showed Facebook use among U.S. teens had dropped in recent years.) YouTube is the only other online platform measured that matches Facebook’s reach: 73 percent of adults report using the video sharing site. But certain online platforms, most notably Instagram and Snapchat, have an especially strong following among young adults.


As was true in previous surveys of social media use by the Center, there are substantial age-related differences in platform use. This is especially true of Instagram and Snapchat, which are used by 67 percent and 62 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, respectively.

Particularly for these two platforms, there are also pronounced differences in use within the young adult population. Those ages 18 to 24 are substantially more likely than those ages 25 to 29 to say they use Snapchat (73 percent vs. 47 percent) and Instagram (75 percent vs. 57 percent).

By comparison, age differences are less pronounced for Facebook. Facebook use is relatively common across a range of age groups, with 68 percent of those ages 50 to 64 and nearly half of those 65 and older saying they use the site.

Other demographic patterns related to social media and messaging app use are relatively unchanged from last year. Women are nearly three times as likely as men to use Pinterest (42 percent vs. 15 percent). Around half of college graduates and those who live in high-income households use LinkedIn, compared with 10 percent or fewer of those who have not attended at least some college or those in lower-income households. And WhatsApp continues to be popular among Hispanics: 42 percent use the messaging app, compared with 24 percent of blacks and 13 percent of whites.

More detailed info can be found in Perrin and Anderson’s report on the Pew website.