Back in my day, we just used email and ICQ on a computer. Done and done. A lot has changed since then. In fact, a lot changed in just the past few years. The Pew Research Center released survey results for teen social media usage in 2018. Compared to 2015, Facebook is down a lot, whereas Instagram and Snapchat are up.



Shifts in Teen Social Media Usage Among 13- to 17-year-olds, 2015 versus 2018 2015 2018 100% YouTube I guess the cesspool comment sections qualify as social. They didn’t in 2015. 80% Instagram Work on that selfie game. Snapchat The stock price would have made me think otherwise. 60% Facebook The biggest drop, from 71% to 51%. Maybe the teens are all busy on Facebook-owned Instagram. 40% Google+ RIP, basically Twitter Not much change. Seems about right. Vine RIP 20% Tumblr Reddit In the 2015 survey, Reddit was clumped together with all discussion boards like Digg. Not quite comparable, but at the time, 17% of teens said they commented on such sites. 0% 2015 2018 Source: Pew Research Center Shifts in Teen Social Media Usage Among 13- to 17-year-olds, 2015 versus 2018 2015 2018 YouTube 80% Instagram Snapchat 60% Facebook 40% Google+ RIP, basically Twitter Vine RIP 20% Tumblr Reddit 0% 2015 2018

On the train the other day I was telling my friend how Snapchat is so odd to use. The interface just doesn’t make sense to me, and I think that makes me old. Then I looked up and a group of teens were all using it talking about snaps, stories, and whosits and whatsits. Kids these days.

I’m looking forward to another three years from now. I think we’ll abandon social media completely. It’ll just be a bunch of smart home devices trying to one-up each other with joke after joke and lighting scenes.