For another year in a row, TikTok found itself as the social app kids and teens spend the most time using throughout the day, even surpassing YouTube. According to an ongoing annual review of children’s and teens’ app usage and behavior around the world, young people – minors between the ages of 4 and 18 – have started watching more TikTok than YouTube on a daily basis. average from June 2020 and TikTok’s numbers have been growing ever since.
In June 2020, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, with kids watching an average of 82 minutes a day on TikTok compared to an average of 75 minutes a day on YouTube, according to new data from parental control software maker Qustodio.
Last year, the divide between the two widened, he said, as children in 2022 saw their average daily TikTok usage soar to 107 minutes, 60% more than the time spent watching video content on YouTube (67 minutes).
TikTok not only topped the average daily usage of other video apps, like Netflix (48 minutes) and Disney+ (40 minutes), but it also outpaced other social apps, including Snapchat (72 minutes), Instagram (45 minutes). .), Facebook (20 min.), Pinterest (16 min.) and Twitter (10 min.) among those under 18.
Picture credits: Qustodio
Meanwhile, as the United States grapples with bans on TikTok on college campuses and in government, the app’s addictive video content has been watched, on average, 113 minutes a day in that market. , compared to 77 minutes per day on YouTube, 52 minutes on Netflix, 90 minutes on Snapchat and 20 minutes on Pinterest.
Still, there is good news for YouTube. The study found that the average daily time spent on YouTube increased by 20% year-on-year, to 67 minutes – the highest number since Qustodio began reporting annual trends in 2019 year, while 63% of children globally used the service in 2022. The report also broke down a few key markets in more detail, noting that 60% of US children watch YouTube, compared to 67% in the UK, 73% in Spain. , and 58% in Australia. The second most popular video service was Netflix, with 39% popularity among children worldwide.
Overall, kids under 18 managed to increase their video content viewing by 18% in 2022, watching 45 minutes a day, on average, on long-form video services like YouTube, Netflix, Disney+ , Prime Videos and others.
Other winners of the year included Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which saw popularity gains of 7% and 10% respectively, i.e. if they were used at any given time by these under 18 years old. But in terms of average daily minutes spent, Prime Video dropped 15% year over year to 34 minutes. Disney+ declined by the same percentage, dropping from a daily average of 47 minutes to 40 minutes in 2022. Twitch also suffered last year with just 11% of under-18s tuning in compared to 16% in 2021.
Picture credits: Qustodio
TikTok’s growth among young people has forced big tech giants to combat the threat with their own short video. YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s solution to the problem. Google reported this month that Shorts had surpassed 50 billion daily views. Instagram, of course, crammed Reels into its experiment — and received backlash over the changes. Instagram head Adam Mosseri even admitted earlier this year that the platform pushed “too many videos” to users.
It is not clear that this shoehorn of Reels on Instagram has paid off with young people. In Qustodio’s analysis, the app fell into the top 5 most popular social media apps in the US, UK and Australia with users under 18. It still ranks 5th globally, however, behind TikTok, Facebook (38% of kids have used globally!), Snapchat and Pinterest.
Although the software company chose to analyze Roblox among other video games, it’s also worth noting that the game is a kind of social network – and a hugely popular destination among kids around the world. The gaming platform was popular with 59% of children globally, and the average daily time spent increased by 4% year-on-year to 180 minutes. That’s more than any other game, including the #2 game Minecraft (up 37% at 48 minutes), Clash Royale, Brawl Stars, Clash of Clans, and What Would You Pick?
Qustodio’s comprehensive report also explores other app trends, including Twitter’s 7% growth in popularity globally, which also led to it being featured in the list of apps for the first time. most blocked apps by parents in 2022. It also looked at educational app usage where Google Classroom ruled on school devices, and Duolingo remained a top app on personal devices. And it looked at communication, where WhatsApp and Discord overtook messages as the most popular way to chat with friends, although Zoom saw more minutes spent daily.
While the report’s data is limited to app usage that Quostido tracks on its own platform, this is a large group that includes more than 400,000 families worldwide with children in the Generation Z and/or Generation Alpha. He also directly interviewed 1,617 parents to ask how they manage their children’s access to technology.
