While its popularity may have wobbled somewhat over the last two years or so, Facebook is still the most popular social network among teenagers, according to a new survey of 1,060 teens ages 13-17 conducted by Pew. Facebook is the leader in simple prevalence -- meaning how many teens are members and at least occasional users -- and also leads in terms of frequency of usage, although by a much smaller margin.
Overall, 71% of teens said they use Facebook, followed by 52% for Instagram, 41% for Snapchat, 33% for Twitter, 33% for Google+, 24% for Vine, and 14% for Tumblr. Of course there’s plenty of overlap, as 71% of teens said they use more than one social network. However, Facebook again leads the way among teens who use multiple networks, with 41% of teens saying they use Facebook most often, followed by 20% for Instagram, 11% for Snapchat, and 6% for Twitter.
There were some significant gender variations within these figures. Overall, 61% of teen girls were on Instagram, versus just 44% of boys, and 51% of teen girls were on Snapchat, compared to 31% of boys. Meanwhile 45% of boys said they use Facebook most often, compared to 36% of girls. Conversely, 23% of girls said they use Instagram most often, versus 17% of boys.
There were also differences correlated with age: 44% of teens ages 15-17 favored Facebook compared to 35% of younger teens, while 25% of teens ages 13-14 favored Instagram, compared to 17% of older teens.
Social network usage also varied by income. Thus 51% of teens from households with incomes under $30,000 said they used Facebook most often, but that figure fell to 46% for teens from households with incomes from $30,000-$74,999; 35% among teens with household incomes from $75,000-$99,999; and 31% among teens with household incomes over $100,000.
Likewise, just 19% of teens from household incomes under $30,000 said they used Instagram most often, but this proportion rose steadily to 25% of teens in the $100,000+ bracket. The same trend was seen across income groups for Snapchat, which increased from 7% for the lowest income group to 15% for the highest.
1,060 seems like an extremely small sample size. I have a 13 year old, only a very small amount of her friends engage on FB. Instagram is no doubt their network of choice