Tik Tok is the most popular platform in the UK with an average daily viewing time of 57 minutes

In the past few years, the nature of content consumption in regions such as the UK and the US has changed significantly, with YouTube and TikTok in particular contributing to this trend.

Data from a study conducted by Ofcom , the UK media regulator , shows that the video platform preferred by British teenagers is not TV, but Tik Tok. People aged 15 to 24 in the UK spend 57 minutes a day watching content on TikTok, which exceeds the average usage time of users around the world and is 4 minutes more than the time the same group of people watch TV programs.

Unlike the UK, YouTube is in the leading position among social media platforms in the US. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that 95% of American teenagers watch YouTube every day, and 19% of them have a trend of continuous use; while only 67% are using TikTok, and 16% of them have a trend of continuous use.

Meanwhile, Instagram ranks third with 62% popularity among the younger generation, while one in ten U.S. teens say they use the app regularly. Interestingly, around 2014-2015, 52% used Instagram, but during that time, TikTok did not exist.

In the United States, Facebook and Twitter, which were once the most popular , have been replaced by other platforms. According to data from the Pew Research Center, Facebook's usage rate has dropped from 71% in 2015 to 32% in 2022, and Twitter's decline, although not as severe, is still worrying, from 33% to 23% in the same period. In contrast, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have become more popular year by year, especially YouTube and TikTok, which did not even exist in 2015, but have become the top platforms in the local area in just a few years.

In terms of platform user categories, the Pew Research Center's study outlined some general findings, with men preferring Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch, while women tend to use TikTok, Snap, and Instagram. More people of black and Hispanic backgrounds like TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter than users of white backgrounds.

More than half of American teens claim that it would be really hard for them to give up social media forever, while nearly 35% said they realize they spend too much time on the apps.

TikTok and YouTube have been growing rapidly in recent years. According to data from research firm data.ai, YouTube has always been ahead of TikTok in terms of average monthly usage time, but in the first quarter of this year, it was surpassed by TikTok for the first time. In addition, in the first quarter of this year, TikTok ranked second in the global popular app download list, with Instagram ranking first, while YouTube did not make the top five.

Although data from the Pew Research Center shows that YouTube is currently the most popular platform in the United States, TikTok has surpassed YouTube in terms of both the average monthly usage time growth rate and the download growth rate, which means that YouTube's growth rate has slowed down, while TikTok is still growing rapidly. According to this trend, TikTok may soon surpass YouTube in all aspects in the United States and become the top 1 in the United States.

For sellers, only by grasping the development trends of social media platforms can they better determine where traffic is concentrated so as to better promote their products.

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