Social Media

The most popular social media platform among US adults isn’t Instagram or TikTok

Published

4 months ago

January 30, 2026

Zoro

Pew Research Center's 2025 report reveals YouTube is the top platform for US adults, followed by Facebook and Instagram. See how TikTok and Threads rank.

Social media has become an inescapable facet of modern life

, yet a new deep dive from the Pew Research Center

offers clarity on just how dependent we remain on these networks. In its 2025 report concerning American adults

, the research group unpacked the granular details of our digital habits, highlighting year-over-year trends, generational divides, and the frequency of usage.

Sitting at the top of the hierarchy is YouTube

, which maintains a commanding lead; 84 percent of the 5,022 surveyed adults utilize the Alphabet-owned video platform.

Meta secures both silver and bronze, with 71 percent of adults on Facebook

and 50 percent on Instagram.

However, Meta’s dominance isn’t universal across its portfolio. Despite Threads

reportedly hitting 400 million monthly active users this summer, only eight percent of survey respondents claimed to use it. The lower end of the spectrum sees X

utilized by 21 percent of adults, followed by niche competitors Bluesky

at four percent and Truth Social at three percent.

Beyond simple adoption rates, Pew also analyzed how obsessively American adults engage with their chosen apps.

In a separate survey of 5,123 individuals, the data shows that 52 percent visit Facebook daily

, with 37 percent logging in multiple times per day. YouTube sees similar engagement, with 48 percent of adults visiting daily and 33 percent watching videos several times a day.