About half of American adults use YouTube and Facebook every single day
TikTok, Reddit, and Threads are all growing, but YouTube remains the most widely used platform.
Being an adult (or even a child) in 2025 often means navigating the pitfalls of spending too much time on social media.
Many might not want to know how much endless scrolling is affecting us — and, for what it’s worth, Meta appears to feel the same, with Reuters reporting earlier today that the company shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook following some concerning findings.
Still, a growing awareness of the risks doesn’t seem to be deterring too many Americans just yet. Last week, Pew Research Center published an update to its survey on social media use, finding that roughly half of Americans in 2025 use Facebook and YouTube every single day (52% and 48%, respectively).
High profiles
Those were also the only two sites that were used by a majority across all age groups, the survey found. However, young people were far more likely to use the video-sharing platform: only 68% of 18- to 29-year-olds reported using Facebook, compared with 95% who use YouTube, which retained its crown as the most used social media overall.
While Facebook has been trying to solve its youth problem by bringing back old features like “pokes,” it’s made more headway with age-inclusive services like Facebook Dating and Marketplace. Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire is also seeing some success at taking on rival X (Twitter) with text-based Threads — a new entrant in Pew’s survey this year, citing 8% of people now using the Instagram-linked site.
At the same time, TikTok, one of Meta’s biggest competitors, has expanded its American user base even as a question mark hangs over its future: the share of US adults reporting using the short-form video app has grown from 21% to 37% over the last four years. Meanwhile, the share who’ve said they use the ever more influential social forum Reddit has more than doubled to 26% since 2019.
