Social media engagement is shaped by both reach and participation: where people maintain accounts, which formats hold attention, and how actively creators and audiences interact. The figures below bring together U.S. adult platform-use data, demographic differences, and recent activity measures reported by major platforms. Measurement dates and geographies are kept explicit because a national adoption percentage is not the same measure as a global daily-user count or a forecast-like platform update.
Contents
- Platform reach among U.S. adults
- Age differences in platform use
- Audience patterns by identity and income
- Daily activity and video behavior
- Snapchat and Pinterest momentum
- Creator participation and live conversation
Platform reach among U.S. adults
The Pew Research Center social media fact sheet, published June 10, 2024, shows a clear reach hierarchy among U.S. adults. YouTube was used by 85%, followed by Facebook at 70%. Instagram reached 50%, while Pinterest reached 36% and TikTok 33%. LinkedIn was used by 32%, WhatsApp by 30%, Snapchat by 27%, Reddit by 24%, and X by 21%. BeReal was used by 3%.
These figures describe reported platform use, not the number of posts, comments, shares, or minutes per session. For storytelling across media, that distinction matters. A platform with broad reach can provide a large potential audience, while a smaller platform may still offer a concentrated setting for a particular community or format.
| Platform | U.S. adults using it | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 85% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 |
| 70% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| 50% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| 36% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| TikTok | 33% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 |
| 32% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| 30% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| Snapchat | 27% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 |
| 24% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 | |
| X | 21% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 |
| BeReal | 3% | Pew Research Center, June 10, 2024 |
The same source places YouTube and Facebook in a different category of practical reach from the rest of this group. Instagram is used by half of U.S. adults, making it a substantial cross-audience channel, while Pinterest and TikTok each reach roughly one-third. LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Reddit, and X have lower overall reported use, but their role cannot be inferred from reach alone.
Age differences in platform use
The Pew Research Center social media fact sheet for 2025 shows how strongly age changes the audience mix. Among U.S. adults ages 18–29, YouTube use was 95%, Instagram use 80%, Facebook use 68%, and TikTok use 63%. Snapchat reached 58%, Reddit 48%, WhatsApp 37%, and X 33%. Threads reached 15%, Bluesky 6%, and Truth Social 1%.
Among adults ages 65 and older, YouTube use was 64% and Facebook use was 57%. The corresponding figures were 20% for WhatsApp, 19% for Instagram, 12% for TikTok, 10% for X, 6% for Reddit, 4% for Snapchat, 4% for Truth Social, 3% for Threads, and 2% for Bluesky.
| Platform | Ages 18–29 | Ages 65+ |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 95% | 64% |
| 68% | 57% | |
| 80% | 19% | |
| TikTok | 63% | 12% |
| 37% | 20% | |
| 48% | 6% | |
| Snapchat | 58% | 4% |
| X | 33% | 10% |
| Threads | 15% | 3% |
| Bluesky | 6% | 2% |
| Truth Social | 1% | 4% |
For media projects, these results support age-specific distribution choices. YouTube and Facebook have substantial reported use in both age groups, whereas Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and Snapchat show much larger differences between younger and older adults. The figures measure platform use in the two age groups; they do not measure how often each group engages or which content they see.
Audience patterns by identity and income
The 2025 Pew Research Center figures also show meaningful differences across selected demographic groups. Among Hispanic adults, Instagram use was 62%, TikTok use 57%, and WhatsApp use 56%. Among Black adults, YouTube use was 85%, Facebook use 74%, Instagram use 54%, and TikTok use 53%.
Household income and education show another pattern. Adults in households earning at least $100,000 had reported use of 89% for YouTube, 60% for Instagram, 53% for LinkedIn, and 37% for Reddit. Among college graduates, YouTube use was 89%, Instagram use 58%, and Reddit use 37%.
Location also appears in the reported figures. Facebook use among suburban adults was 71%. Instagram use among urban adults was 55%, while WhatsApp use among urban adults was 44%.
These measures are useful for audience planning because they show that “social media users” are not one uniform group. A storytelling campaign can have different opportunities depending on whether it is aimed at Hispanic audiences, Black audiences, college graduates, higher-income households, or urban and suburban communities. The supplied Pew Research Center figures identify use percentages for each named group; they do not provide engagement rates, conversion rates, or a common survey date beyond the 2025 fact-sheet reference.
Daily activity and video behavior
Company-reported activity metrics add a different layer to audience reach. Meta reported that its family of apps had 3.29 billion daily active people on average in September 2024. Meta also reported total revenue of $40.589 billion in the third quarter of 2024. In its 2024 earnings materials, Meta reported that time spent grew 8% on Facebook and 6% on Instagram. A Meta Q1 2024 earnings call reported that video represented 60% of time spent on Facebook and Instagram.
These are platform-reported business and activity measures, not survey estimates of U.S. adult use. The distinction is important: daily active people across Meta’s family of apps are a global company metric, while the Pew percentages above describe U.S. adults reporting whether they use particular platforms. The measures should be read together as complementary evidence rather than combined into one total.
YouTube for Press reported that YouTube Shorts averaged over 200 billion daily views in 2026. The same source reported that YouTube had been number one in U.S. streaming watch time for nearly three years as of January 2026. A YouTube 20th birthday post reported that more than 20 million videos were uploaded daily in 2025.
The YouTube figures describe views, streaming watch time, and uploads, so they point to the scale of video circulation and production. They do not establish that every view represents a unique person or that an upload receives a particular level of interaction. For narrative work, the practical signal is the size of the video ecosystem: audiences may encounter a story through long-form video, short-form clips, or a high-volume stream of new uploads.
Snapchat and Pinterest momentum
Snap reported 422 million daily active users in Q1 2024, 432 million in Q2 2024, and 443 million in Q3 2024. Snap also reported that total time spent watching Spotlight content increased by more than 125% year over year in Q1 2024. In North America, time spent watching Stories from Snap Stars grew by more than 55% year over year in Q1 2024. In Q3 2024, more than a billion Snaps were shared publicly on Snapchat every month, and Spotlight reached more than 500 million monthly active users on average.
Pinterest reported 518 million global monthly active users in Q1 2024, 522 million in Q2, 537 million in Q3, and 553 million in Q4. Pinterest revenue was $740 million in Q1, $854 million in Q2, $898 million in Q3, and $1.154 billion in Q4 2024.
| Platform metric | Earlier period | Later period |
|---|---|---|
| Snap daily active users | 422 million, Q1 2024 | 443 million, Q3 2024 |
| Pinterest global monthly active users | 518 million, Q1 2024 | 553 million, Q4 2024 |
| Pinterest revenue | $740 million, Q1 2024 | $1.154 billion, Q4 2024 |
The Snap and Pinterest figures use different audience definitions and reporting periods. Snap’s numbers are daily active users, while Pinterest’s are global monthly active users. Pinterest’s revenue figures are financial results, not engagement counts. Their value for media planning is directional: they show substantial reported activity, but they should not be treated as interchangeable audience totals.
Creator participation and live conversation
TikTok LIVE’s 2024 recap reported 269 billion chats generated during TikTok LIVE in 2024. It also reported that more than 100 million creators went LIVE during the year, including more than 46 million new creators who started their LIVE journey. TikTok LIVE further reported that 250,000 creators doubled their income year over year in 2024.
These figures describe a live format in which participation is visible through chats and creator activity. They are not the same as ordinary feed engagement, and the recap does not establish a universal engagement rate per creator or per broadcast. Still, the scale of the reported chat volume and creator base indicates that live storytelling can function as a two-way media experience rather than a one-directional publication.
Taken together, the platform data points to several distinct dimensions of social media engagement: broad reported use among U.S. adults; sharply different age, identity, income, education, and location profiles; global daily or monthly activity reported by platforms; video viewing and upload volume; and direct creator-audience interaction through public sharing, live chats, and Stories. For a cross-media story, the right metric depends on the question being asked: reach, active use, viewing, publishing, or conversation.