U.S. social media platform usage trends

Survey design and sampling for U.S. adults

To study social media use among U.S. adults, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,022 adults from Feb. 5 to June 18, 2025 using SSRS’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS). The survey used address-based sampling and a multimode approach (web, mail, and phone) so that nearly all U.S. adults had a chance of selection. Results were weighted to represent the U.S. adult population by key demographics such as gender, race and ethnicity, education, and other categories. The survey shows that YouTube and Facebook are the most widely used platforms, while about half of U.S. adults report using Instagram. Smaller shares use platforms such as TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, and X (formerly Twitter). Pew also tracks how platform usage changes over time (2012–2025), noting a mode shift: surveys were conducted by phone from 2012–2021, by web and mail in 2023, and by web, mail, and phone in 2024–2025. Usage varies across demographic groups including age, gender, and education.

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Multimode data collection methods and weighting

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