Americans’ Use of Mobile Technology and Home Broadband
Most U.S. adults today say they use the internet (95%), have a smartphone (90%) or subscribe to high-speed internet at home (80%). About four-in-ten report being online almost constantly.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Most U.S. adults today say they use the internet (95%), have a smartphone (90%) or subscribe to high-speed internet at home (80%). About four-in-ten report being online almost constantly.
YouTube and Facebook are by far the most used online platforms among U.S. adults. But TikTok’s user base has grown significantly in recent years: 33% of U.S. adults now say they use it, up from 21% in 2021.
Majorities of teens credit social media with strengthening their friendships and providing support while also noting the emotionally charged side of these platforms.
In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.
More than 44 million #BlackLivesMatter tweets from nearly 10 million distinct users currently exist on Twitter today. Over half of all existing tweets that include the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag were posted from May to September 2020.
About half (48%) of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020. More than half of Twitter users get news on the site regularly.
The landscape of social media is ever-changing, especially among teens who often are on the leading edge of this space. A new survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds that TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens, while the share of teens who use Facebook has fallen sharply.
Most think social media has made it easier to manipulate and divide people, but they also say it informs and raises awareness.
About half of U.S. adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” and this use is spread out across a number of different sites. Facebook stands out as a regular source of news for about a third of Americans.
A new study of posts on popular public Facebook pages about the early days of the Biden administration finds that the focus of these posts, as well as the assessments of the new president, differed widely by the ideological orientation of the pages.
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