Pew’s 2025 Social Media Report Shows Endurance of YouTube, Facebook

By Brittany Siminitz | November 24, 2025

A Pew Research Center report on “Americans’ Social Media Use 2025” says that while YouTube and Facebook were the most popular platforms, they were the only major social media apps not to show significant growth in usage over the past four years.

The report is based on a survey conducted February–June 2025 of more than 5,000 adults in the United States. It shows that YouTube had the highest usage of any social media, with 84% of respondents naming it when asked which platforms they ever use. The only other apps named by at least half the respondents were Facebook, with 71%, and Instagram, at 50%.

The report also draws from a separate survey involving 5,123 U.S. adults that was conducted Feb. 24–March 2. Facebook and YouTube won out there as well, though the question was about which social media they use daily. Facebook was named by 52%, and YouTube by 48%—the only apps used every day by about half of respondents. (Some 24% said they use TikTok daily.)

Based on the February –June survey, Pew also compared usage in 2025 to 2021. Use of YouTube and Facebook remained relatively stable over those years, according to Pew, while Instagram rose 40%. Meanwhile, usage from 2021 to 2025 increased 21% on TikTok, 23% for WhatsApp, and 18% for Reddit. The report notes that Instagram and TikTok usage did not rise significantly in the past year, as Insta was on par with 2024 and TikTok only “slightly up.”

Pew reports “large age gaps in use of many platforms,” with Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Reddit much more popular among the youngest age group, 18–29, than the oldest (65+). For Instagram, there was a 61-point difference in the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds using it (80%) compared with those 65 and older (19%). TikTok and Snapchat also had percentage point differences higher than 50 between youngest and oldest users.

The report further divvies out data based on gender, race/ethnicity, education, and political party. Women outnumbered men in use of Facebook (78% versus 63%), Instagram (55% to 44%), and TikTok (42% to 30%), while men were more likely than women to use X (25% versus 16%) and Reddit (29% to 23%).

In terms of education, the only platform with higher reported usage among those with less education was TikTok, named by 40% of those with at most a high school education and 42% of those with some college, but 29% of those who completed college or higher education. Reddit and WhatsApp usage was notably higher at the top education level—27 and 41%, respectively, compared with 15% for Reddit and 27% for WhatsApp in the “high school or less” group.

For the question about which social media that respondents ever use, Pew included three apps for the first time this year: Threads (named by 8%), Bluesky (4%), and Truth Social (3%).