Pew: Teen Social Media Habits Hold Steady As AI Chatbots Move Into The Mainstream – Net Influencer
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U.S. teens continue to concentrate their attention on a familiar set of social platforms, such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, even as artificial intelligence chatbots emerge as a widely used new tool, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in late September and early October 2025.
Pew found that teens’ engagement isn’t just broad; for a sizable minority, it is intensive. About one in five adolescents reported using TikTok and YouTube “almost constantly,” underscoring that these services function less as occasional destinations and more as persistent ambient media for some users.
At the same time, Pew found that 64% of teens reported using AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Copilot, or Character.ai, with roughly three in ten using them daily.
YouTube remained the most widely used platform on Pew’s list: 92% of teens reported using it. TikTok was used by 68%, Instagram by 63%, and Snapchat by 55%. Pew found smaller shares using Facebook (31%) and WhatsApp (24%). Reddit and X were each used by no more than about one in five teens, with X at 16%.
For marketing and creator-economy professionals, the topline split sketches a landscape where video-first distribution (YouTube and TikTok) coexists with visually oriented social networking (Instagram) and private-first communication patterns (Snapchat). Pew’s chart comparisons also showed that YouTube’s teen usage has stayed high in recent years.
Pew’s frequency data indicated pronounced daily patterns across a handful of services. Approximately three-quarters of adolescents reported using YouTube every day. Smaller majorities reported daily use of TikTok (61%) and Instagram (55%). Snapchat accounted for daily use among 46% of teens, while Facebook accounted for 20%.
On the highest-intensity measure, Pew found that 21% of adolescents reported using TikTok “almost constantly,” and 17% reported the same for YouTube. Instagram and Snapchat each had 12% reporting almost-constant use, whereas Facebook had 3%. Across those five platforms, 36% of adolescents reported using at least one almost constantly.
Pew also noted that teens “express mixed feelings about social media’s impact,” while still describing these sites as a key part of their lives, including for some who use them “almost constantly.”
Most major teen platforms measured by Pew showed relative stability in recent years, but the report highlighted a few exceptions. WhatsApp rose to about a quarter of teens using it, up from 17% in 2022.
Meanwhile, Pew reported declines for X and Facebook over the past decade. X was used by 16% of teens in 2025, down from 23% in 2022 and 33% in 2014-15. Facebook, which Pew described as “once the go-to platform for teens,” was used by about three in ten teens, far below the 71% reported in 2014-15.
Pew found notable differences in which platforms teens use across gender, race and ethnicity, age, and household income.
By gender, teen girls were more likely to use Snapchat (61% vs. 49% for boys) and Instagram, while boys were more likely to use Reddit (21% vs. 12%) and YouTube.
By age, older adolescents (15-17) were more likely than younger adolescents (13-14) to use multiple platforms. Pew highlighted Instagram as an example: 75% of older teens reported using it, compared with 44% of younger teens. YouTube was an exception, with similar usage across age groups.
On intensity, Pew reported that teen girls were slightly more likely than boys to use TikTok and Instagram “almost constantly,” while boys were more likely to do so on YouTube (20% vs. 13%).
Pew also pointed to differences by race and ethnicity in high-frequency use. Black and Hispanic teens were “particularly likely” to report being on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram almost constantly. Pew cited YouTube as an example: 35% of Black teens said they are on YouTube almost constantly, compared with 23% of Hispanic teens and 8% of White teens.
In 2025, Pew asked teens for the first time about their use of AI chatbots and found broad adoption. Roughly two-thirds (64%) said they use an AI chatbot, while 36% said they do not.
Usage varied across groups. Pew reported higher chatbot use among Black and Hispanic teens (roughly seven-in-ten) than among White teens (58%), and higher use among older teens (68% for ages 15 to 17 vs. 57% for ages 13 to 14). Teens in households earning $75,000 or more were more likely to use chatbots than those earning less than $30,000 (66% vs. 56%).
On average, about three in ten teens reported using chatbots daily, including 16% who do so several times a day or almost constantly.
When Pew asked about specific tools, ChatGPT stood out. Among all adolescents, 59% reported using ChatGPT, more than twice the share for Gemini (23%) and higher than Meta AI (20%). Copilot registered at 14%, Character.ai at 9% and Claude at 3%.
Pew’s survey also found that 97% of U.S. adolescents reported using the internet daily. Four-in-ten said they are online “almost constantly,” a measure Pew said is higher than a decade ago, though slightly lower than in 2024.
Methodologically, Pew said the findings are based on an online survey of 1,458 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, conducted September 25 to October 9, 2025, and weighted to be representative of teens living with their parents.
Image credits: Pew Research Center
The full report is available here
Nii A. Ahene is the founder and managing director of Net Influencer, a website dedicated to offering insights into the influencer marketing industry. Together with its newsletter, Influencer Weekly, Net Influencer provides news, commentary, and analysis of the events shaping the creator and influencer marketing space. Through interviews with startups, influencers, brands, and platforms, Nii and his team explore how influencer marketing is being effectively used to benefit businesses and personal brands alike.
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