While YouTube and Facebook are the most-used platforms among U.S. adults, TikTok is the fastest growing, according to a new Pew Research survey on social media usage. Google’s YouTube led in popularity by a wide margin, with 83 percent of the 5,733 U.S. adults polled reporting they had used it at some point. Meta Platforms’ Facebook took second place, with 68 percent of respondents having at least tried it. Those two platforms also stood out for having the majority through each age demographic subset. Instagram, also owned by Meta, took third place, with 47 percent of respondents attesting they had used it.

Interestingly, Pinterest, at 35 percent, eeked past TikTok’s 33 percent in terms of those who have used it. However, TikTok’s growth was its differentiator. “The ByteDance-owned platform shot up 12 points from 21 percent from two years before,” according to Engadget, which says that is “by far the biggest leap of any platform on the list.”

In the popularity contest, “LinkedIn (30 percent), WhatsApp (29 percent) and Snapchat (27 percent) all fall into the next tier down,” Engadget adds. The Pew study was conducted between May 19 and September 5, 2023.

Other platforms with noteworthy age-group discrepancies include Instagram (78 percent of 29-and-under survey participants use it, compared to 15 percent of 65 and older) and Snapchat (65 percent use it for those under 30, four percent for 65 and up). The 40- to 49-year-old demographic, which includes younger Gen-Xers and all but the youngest Millennials, has especially high rates for LinkedIn (40 percent), WhatsApp (38 percent) and Facebook (75 percent).

“While there may be a few small tweaks with each survey, Pew mostly asks the same questions every couple of years, making it possible to track meaningful changes over time,” TechCrunch observes, quoting Pew Research Center Associate Director of Research Jeff Gottfried saying an interesting trend in the most recent analysis is “the amount of stability that we saw on many of the platforms that we’re studying.”

That includes X, known as Twitter when the study started, which ranked ninth in terms of popularity, trending toward users age 18-29 (42 percent). That dropped to 27 percent for ages 30-49, declining from there.

Another Pew survey on Internet use reflects that the number of people age 50-64 who go online is up from 88 percent in 2019 to 96 percent in 2023, commensurate with those in the 18-49 age groups.

While younger adults are more likely to use the social media apps X/Twitter, Reddit and TikTok, the latter also leans more heavily female (with 40 percent of women saying they’ve used it, versus 25 percent of men).

“Hispanic adults were especially likely to use TikTok, with 49 percent reporting they have used the app, while 39 percent and 29 percent of Black and Asian adults, respectively, said they used the platform,” The Hill writes of the survey.