A recent S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan survey underscores social media’s growing dominance among younger users, with Gen Z adults averaging 5.1 hours per day on social platforms in Q1 2025 — up from 4.5 hours in Q1 2023.
The generational gap remains stark:Gen Z spends nearly twice as much time on social media as millennials.
And more than three times as much as Gen X, baby boomers, and seniorsNotably, while social media usage climbed further for Gen Z between Q1 2023 and Q3 2025, it declined across every other age group.
Additional key insights:
- Facebook and Instagram continue to lead as the top two U.S. social platforms.
- Outside of TikTok, most Americans spend less than 1 hour per day on any single platform.
- The average American now uses 2.6 social media platforms, down from 3.2 in early 2023.
- 73% of Gen Z and 52% of millennials strongly or somewhat agree that they get better TV and movie recommendations from social media than from streaming services — a view shared by far fewer older users.
- 62% of Gen Z adults say they have bought items or merchandise directly through a social media platform (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), compared to 47% of millennials, 31% of Gen X, and just 21% of baby boomers/seniors.In short, social media’s influence — from discovery to shopping — is deepening fastest among the youngest adults, even as overall engagement contracts for older generations.
