How Teens Navigate School During COVID-19
A majority of teens prefer in-person over virtual or hybrid learning. Hispanic and lower-income teens are particularly likely to fear they’ve fallen behind in school due to COVID-19 disruptions.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
A majority of teens prefer in-person over virtual or hybrid learning. Hispanic and lower-income teens are particularly likely to fear they’ve fallen behind in school due to COVID-19 disruptions.
YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram remain the most widely used online platforms among U.S. teens. And teens are less likely to be using Facebook and Twitter (recently renamed X) than they were a decade ago.
Most teens at least sometimes feel happy and peaceful when they don’t have their phone, but 44% say this makes them anxious. Half of parents say they have looked through their teen’s phone.
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.
Majorities of teens credit social media with strengthening their friendships and providing support while also noting the emotionally charged side of these platforms.
Two-thirds of parents in the U.S. say parenting is harder today than it was 20 years ago, with many citing technologies – like social media or smartphones – as a reason.
YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular online platforms among teens. Fully 95% of teens have access to a smartphone and 45% say they are online almost constantly.
Teens credit social media for helping to build stronger friendships and exposing them to a more diverse world, but they express concern that these sites lead to drama and social pressure.
Roughly half of U.S. teens say they spend too much time on their cellphones, and two-thirds of parents express concern over their teen’s screen time. But parents face their own challenges of device-related distraction.
Parents monitor their teen’s digital activities in a number of ways, such as checking browser histories or social media profiles, but using technical means like parental controls is less common.
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