As we round out the end of the year, it's worth looking at what were the most popular and widely used social media apps.

There’s a difference between what people believe are the most popular apps and which ones get the most use. 

TikTok is often looked at as an extremely popular app, while Facebook is usually considered to be an abandoned platform altogether with a few users active.

Instead, what we find is Facebook is the number two app and TikTok is actually listed sixth.

YouTube and Facebook still dominate the online scene, with half of U.S. adults saying they’re hanging out on Instagram. Meanwhile, smaller crowds are flocking to TikTok, LinkedIn, X (you know, the artist formerly known as Twitter), and Snapchat.

This data comes from a report by the Pew Research Center. You can dig into their report for a deeper dive on demographics.

To get the lowdown on Americans' social media habits, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,626 U.S. adults between Feb. 1 and June 10, 2024.

The study, run by SSRS, used a mix of web, mail, and phone methods with address-based sampling to cover nearly all corners of the U.S. adult population.

They weighted the survey results to reflect key demographics like gender, race, education, and more, making sure it’s a solid snapshot of the country’s social media use.