Many Americans use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves. Explore the patterns and trends shaping the social media landscape.
To better understand Americans’ social media use, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,733 U.S. adults from May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023. Ipsos conducted this National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) for the Center using address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that included both web and mail. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education and other categories.
Polls from 2000 to 2021 were conducted via phone. For more on this mode shift, read our Q&A.
Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.
A note on terminology: Our May-September 2023 survey was already in the field when Twitter changed its name to “X.” The terms Twitter and X are both used in this report to refer to the same platform.
YouTube and Facebook are the most-widely used online platforms. About half of U.S. adults say they use Instagram, and smaller shares use sites or apps such as TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter (X) and BeReal.
Which social media platforms are most popular
% of U.S. adults who say they ever use …
