For a platform that everyone claims to abandon, Facebook is surprisingly resilient. According to a recent Pew study, 71 percent of American adults still use the site — and more than half check it daily, cementing it as one of the few constants in an otherwise changing social media landscape.
And it is not alone. YouTube is the only platform that’s even more ubiquitous than Facebook, with 84 percent of adults saying they use it — a figure that, like Facebook’s, has barely changed over the years — and nearly half doing so every day. They are the only two platforms with universal reach, being used by a clear majority of all age groups surveyed, from teenagers to retirees.
From there things start to fall apart. Instagram – the only other platform used by at least half of adults – shows a much greater age divide than YouTube or Facebook. Four-fifths of adults aged 18-29 said they use it, while only 19 percent of adults aged 65 and older said they use it. This applies to almost all platforms, with younger users reporting greater usage. There are similar, though less dramatic, drawbacks for TikTok, Reddit, and Snapchat. The only exception is Donald Trump’s Truth Social, which undercounts the elderly and disproportionately appeals to adults 50 and older.
There is also a political dimension to this. Truth Social and Bluesky — both relative newcomers to the world of social media — show unmistakable partisan leanings, which is likely exacerbated by their relatively small user bases of only 3 percent and 4 percent of adults, respectively. Truth Social weighs heavily on Republicans, with 6% of Republican or Republican-leaning respondents saying they use it compared to just 1 percent of Democrats. The BlueSky shows the opposite: 8 percent of Democrats report using it, while only 1 percent of Republicans use it.
Pew’s data also point to a broader realignment at X, formerly Twitter. Two years ago, the platform was favored by Democrats, with more than a quarter reporting they used it compared to a fifth of Republicans. Today, the numbers have basically flipped, with 24 percent of Republicans now reporting using X, compared to 19 percent of Democrats.
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