Social media use in US: Facebook, YouTube dominate but millennials prefer Snapchat, Instagram

When it comes to social media penetration in daily life, a majority of Americans are hooked to Facebook and YouTube but millennials prefer photo-sharing platforms Snapchat and Instagram, a new survey has revealed.

According to the Pew Research Centre, 68 per cent of all Americans use Facebook and three-quarters of those access the social media platform on a daily basis.

Nearly 74 per cent of adults use YouTube and 94 per cent of young users visit YouTube on their computers or smartphones.

With the exception of those 65 and older, a majority of Americans across a wide range of demographic groups now use Facebook.

"Younger Americans (especially those ages 18 to 24) stand out for embracing a variety of platforms and using them frequently. Some 78 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, and a sizeable majority of these users (71 per cent) visit the platform multiple times per day," the findings showed.

Similarly, 71 per cent of Americans in this age group now use Instagram and close to half (45 per cent) are Twitter users, the survey noted.

"These findings also highlight the public's sometimes conflicting attitudes toward social media. For example, the share of social media users who say these platforms would be hard to give up has increased by 12 percentage points compared with a survey conducted in early 2014,a the Pew Research Centre said.

By the same token, a majority of users (59 per cent) say it would not be hard to stop using these sites, including 29 per cent who say it would not be hard at all to give up social media.

Some 88 per cent of 18- to 29-year-olds indicate that they use any form of social media. That share falls to 78 per cent among those ages 30 to 49, to 64 per cent among those ages 50 to 64 and to 37 per cent among Americans 65 and older.

Pinterest remains substantially more popular with women -- 41 per cent -- than men (16 per cent).

LinkedIn remains especially popular among college graduates and those in high-income households.

"Some 50 per cent of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn, compared with just 9 per cent of those with a high school diploma or less," the survey said.

The messaging service WhatsApp is popular in Latin America, and this popularity also extends to Latinos in the US - 49 per cent of Hispanics report that they are WhatsApp users, compared with 14 per cent of whites and 21 per cent of blacks.