Americans Social Media Use
YouTube and Facebook are by far the most used online platforms among U.S. adults; TikTok's user base has grown since 2021
To better understand Americans' social media use, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,733 U.S. adults from May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023. Ipsos conducted this National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) for the Center using address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that included both web and mail. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education and other categories.
Polls from 2000 to 2021 were conducted via phone. For more on this mode shift, read our Q&A.
Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.
A note on terminology: Our May-September 2023 survey was already in the field when Twitter changed its name to “X.” The terms Twitter and X are both used in this report to refer to the same platform.
Social media platforms faced a range of controversies in recent years, including concerns over misinformation and data privacy. Even so, U.S. adults use a wide range of sites and apps, especially YouTube and Facebook. And TikTok – which some Congress members previously called to ban – saw growth in its user base.
These findings come from a Pew Research Center survey of 5,733 U.S. adults conducted May 19-Sept. 5, 2023.
Which social media sites do Americans use most?
YouTube by and large is the most widely used online platform measured in our survey. Roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults (83%) report ever using the video-based platform.
While a somewhat lower share reports using it, Facebook is also a dominant player in the online landscape. Most Americans (68%) report using the social media platform.
Additionally, roughly half of U.S. adults (47%) say they use Instagram.
The other sites and apps asked about are not as widely used, but a fair portion of Americans still use them:
- 27% to 35% of U.S. adults use Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Snapchat.
- About one-in-five say they use Twitter (recently renamed “X”) and Reddit.
This year is the first time we asked about BeReal, a photo-based platform launched in 2020. Just 3% of U.S. adults report using it.
Recent Center findings show that YouTube also dominates the social media landscape among U.S. teens.
TikTok sees growth since 2021
One platform – TikTok – stands out for growth of its user base. A third of U.S. adults (33%) say they use the video-based platform, up 12 percentage points from 2021 (21%).
The other sites asked about had more modest or no growth over the past couple of years. For instance, while YouTube and Facebook dominate the social media landscape, the shares of adults who use these platforms has remained stable since 2021.
The Center has been tracking use of online platforms for many years. Recently, we shifted from gathering responses via telephone to the web and mail.
