Consumer media usage may have reached a plateau in the US, but it’s still significant. More than one-quarter of Americans report consuming at least 5 hours of media on the average weekday or weekend, with Baby Boomers the heaviest users, according to a report from YouGov.
Examining various forms of media consumption, the study notes that almost three-quarters (72%) claim to have used social media in the past month, with this highest among Millennials (79%). Video content streaming (69%) is more widespread than live TV viewing (63%), while listening to music from a streaming service such as Spotify is as common as listening to the radio (58% each), though the former is more popular with Gen Z (74%) and the latter most common among Baby Boomers (65%). Reading digital newspapers (23%) and print magazines (15%) are less popular activities to perform on a monthly basis among the US adult population, with Baby Boomers outperforming the average on each (26% and 23%, respectively).
Here are some key stats on Americans’ social, video and audio habits.
Social Media
Among all social media users, Facebook is the most widespread (75%) in monthly use, slightly ahead of YouTube (72%), with Instagram the only other approaching half of the social media-using population (47%).
That result masks a fairly significant difference when sorting by age, with YouTube ascendant among Gen Zers and Millennials and Facebook the most popular among Gen Xers and Baby Boomers+.
Not surprisingly, Instagram is also more widely used among the younger than older generations, as is TikTok. Notably, Reddit – which is growing in popularity, is reportedly used on a monthly basis by one-quarter of social media users, rising to a high of 39% of Millennial social media users.
As heavy social media use appears to be dropping, it’s interesting to note that social media users are more likely to be decreasing their use of most major platforms as opposed to be increasing their activity in comparison to last year. That’s true for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and Snapchat. The only platform to buck that trend is YouTube: one-third of social media users are using it more than last year, compared to 13% who have cut back on its use. This trend is most apparent among Gen Z social media users, who are far more likely to have increased than cut their use of the platform.
Overall, 58% of American adults are daily social media users, of whom 55% are female.
Video
As expected, older generations are more avid live TV viewers: among those who watch live TV on a typical day, 36% of respondents who are Gen X or older report doing so for at least 3 hours, compared to one-quarter of Gen Z & Millennials.
Daily TV viewers are more apt to be female (56%) than male (44%), and 41% are Baby Boomers, compared to 30% of the general population. Some 43% are parents of children over 18, versus 37% of the general population.
Meanwhile, Netflix is the leader in streaming service viewing among on-demand TV viewers, followed by Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.
Audio
Radio listening tends to be lighter than TV viewing among its audience: some 53% of radio listeners spend only up to an hour listening to live or on-demand radio on a typical day, according to the report. The audience of daily radio listeners – sized at 13% of the sample – is almost evenly split between men (49%) and women (51%), and Baby Boomers over-index in daily radio listening.
Among the podcast listeners in the sample, close to half (48%) spend an hour or less listening to podcasts on a typical day. Daily podcast listeners are split evenly between men (50%) and women (50%), meaning that men over-index slightly in daily podcast listening relative to their population share (48%).
Among the 16% of American adults who are daily podcast listeners, a sizable 37% share are Millennials (compared to 29% of the US general population), and 51% aren’t parents (compared to 37% of the general population).
➤For the full data, download the YouGov report here.