Teens and tech 2023

NEW DATA! SOUND THE ALARMS!

Dec 18, 2023

Hi! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a clinical psychologist, professor at Brown University, and mom of two young kids. Here at Techno Sapiens, I share the latest research on psychology, technology, and parenting, plus practical tips for living and parenting in the digital age. If you haven’t already, subscribe to join 20,000 readers.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m having a wonderful holiday season. Our Elf on the Shelf (“Frisbee”) is happily making his rounds around the house,1 my toddler is repeatedly requesting Mariah Carey tunes, and my children have now seen Santa riding a firetruck on, like, four separate occasions.23

And just when I thought the season couldn’t get any better, this week Pew Research Center went and released its latest data on U.S. teens’ technology use. A true gift!

Based on data collected this fall, the Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023 report gives us an up-to-date snapshot of the platforms and devices teens are using, as well as how often they’re using them—and it’s fascinating.

Happy holidays!

How’d they do it?

A nationally-representative sample of 1,453 U.S. 13- to 17-year-olds answered survey questions online
Data was collected in September and October 2023
For comparison, they collected similar data in 2022 and 2015

Now, let’s hit the highlights.

What platforms are teens using?

Nearly all of them (93%) use YouTube
TikTok (63%), Snapchat (60%), and Instagram (59%) are roughly tied for second place
Facebook (33%) and Twitter/X (20%) show no signs of regaining popularity
The magic of BeReal (only 13%) seems to be over

How much are they using these platforms?

One-third of teens are using one of the top five sites “almost constantly” (!)

The majority of teens are using YouTube (71%) and TikTok (58%) every single day
Nearly half are using Snapchat (51%) and Instagram (47%) everyday.
Only 19% use Facebook everyday.

Does this differ by age? Gender? Race and ethnicity?

Nearly all teens use YouTube (93%), so this doesn’t differ much by demographic group
Gender: Girls are more likely than boys to use Instagram (66% vs. 53%) and Snapchat (65% vs. 56%).
Age: Older teens (ages 15-17) are more likely than younger teens (ages 13-14) to use nearly all platforms, including TikTok (57% vs 58%), Snapchat (67% vs. 49%), and Instagram (68% vs. 45%).
Race and Ethnicity: Black teens are more likely to use TikTok (80%) than Hispanic (70%) and White (57%) teens.

And do all teens have smartphones?

Pretty much.

95% of teens ages 13-17 have a smartphone. This is “nearly universal,” and does not differ significantly based on gender, age, race and ethnicity, or household income4
90% of teens have a desktop or laptop, but this number is lower among those from low-income households (72%)
83% of teens have a gaming console (like Playstation or XBox) at home; this is more common among boys vs. girls (91% vs. 75%)

What to make of all this?

A few things stood out to me in this data.

First, we’ve seen remarkably little change in the use of the major platforms over the past year. YouTube still reigns supreme, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are holding steady, and Facebook and Twitter/X are still the domain of the old and out-of-touch (e.g., me).5 But that doesn’t mean there’s been no change in the past year. BeReal, which in summer 2022 was one of the most-downloaded apps in the App Store, appeared on this year’s survey. Unfortunately, it was too late—the app has already lost its buzz, its numbers dwindling to only 13% of teens. A good reminder that new apps rise and fall fast, but the “old guard” will be hard to take down.

Second, I look at these types of data fairly regularly, and have been doing so for more than a decade. That said, it never ceases to surprise me just how much teens are using social media. One-third say they’re using at least one platform “almost constantly.” The majority are on TikTok or YouTube every single day. Of course, this data doesn’t tell us what they’re actually doing with that time, but it does tell us this: social media is fully embedded into teens’ everyday lives.

Here’s what that means: supporting teens in healthier social media use, making these platforms safer and better for them, is going to be a complicated problem to solve. And it’s one we need to get right.

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We are first-timers on the Elf on a Shelf tradition this year. I do have some concern about how we’ll keep this up for the next decade or so, but for now, it’s worth it to hear my son scream FRISBEE MOVED! with renewed shock every morning.

Did Santa always ride a firetruck? This is not a thing I remember from my childhood, but seems to the only method of transport that Santa uses when arriving at holiday events in my town. I don’t understand what firetrucks have to do with anything. Is it the whole “wearing red” thing? Something to do with coming down the chimney into a fireplace?

At one event we attended, Santa stood on top of a blaring firetruck and threw popcorn balls into an increasingly frantic crowd of children. Isn’t this what it’s all about? I thought to myself, as I fled the scene, shielding my baby’s head from the popcorn and covering my toddler’s ears.

To clarify, the specific question asked about smartphones was: “At home, do you have or have access to a smartphone?” This question has been used in earlier Pew surveys, too. So, it is possible that some kids are answering “yes,” even if the owner of the smartphone is a parent or sibling. That said, the numbers are pretty consistent with a survey I did with Common Sense Media earlier this year. We asked “Do you have a smartphone where you can access social media?” and 93% of girls ages 13-15 said “yes.”

Sometimes my job provides some fun reminders of just how old and out of touch my social media and phone habits are. As part of one of my current research projects, I designed a short interview where we ask teen participants to look at their “screen time data” and report on their most used apps. I was once practicing the interview with one of my research assistants—I was pretending to be the teen participant—and so was reporting on my own screen time data. I’d recently deleted all social media and email from my phone, so the apps that topped the list were, shall we say, unexpected. Am I ashamed that my local frozen yogurt shop’s delivery app was #3? No, no I am not.