Connection, Creativity and Drama: Teen Life on Social Media in 2022
Majorities of teens credit social media with strengthening their friendships and providing support while also noting the emotionally charged side of these platforms.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Majorities of teens credit social media with strengthening their friendships and providing support while also noting the emotionally charged side of these platforms.
A majority of teens say a welcoming, safe online environment is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online.
In April 2021, we followed up with many of the same parents surveyed in March 2020 on their children’s use of technology and social media.
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.
Social media is an important tool for consumers, with some Americans – particularly younger adults – turning to influencer recommendations.
The social media sites that journalists use most frequently for their jobs differ from those that the public turns to for news.
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.
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