TikTok Gains Ground as Social Media Growth Plateaus, New Data Shows
A new report reveals that TikTok is the only major social media platform experiencing significant growth in the US, as usage of established giants like Facebook and YouTube stabilizes and even declines slightly.
The number of US adults who report ever using TikTok has increased by 4 percentage points in the past year, according to the latest data from Pew Research. This contrasts sharply with the broader trend of plateauing usage across other platforms. While YouTube remains the most widely used platform – with 84% of US adults having used it – its usage has dipped by 1% since last year.
Rise of Niche Platforms and Shifting Demographics
Alongside TikTok, Reddit and WhatsApp are also seeing consistent growth in popularity among US adults. Approximately 32% now use WhatsApp, a substantial increase from 23% in 2021. Reddit’s user base has also expanded, reaching 26% of US adults today, up from 18% four years ago.
However, this growth isn’t uniform across demographics. A key finding from the Pew Research Center is the widening age gap on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Reddit. US adults under 30 are significantly more likely to be active on these platforms than their older counterparts. For instance, 80% of adults aged 18-29 report using Instagram, compared to just 19% of those over 65.
Interestingly, Truth Social, the social media platform launched by Donald Trump, presents a unique anomaly. It’s the only platform where older users are more prevalent than younger ones, despite having a relatively small overall user base of just 3% of the US population.
Global Trends: Attention Economy and Brand Research
Globally, the social media landscape is equally dynamic. Online adults now use an average of 6.8 different social media platforms each month, excluding YouTube, according to the latest Digital 2026 report. While “keeping in touch with friends and family” remains the primary motivation for social media use – cited by over half of the 5.66 billion active users – “filling spare time” is rapidly gaining traction as the second most popular reason.
This shift underscores a broader industry observation: social media is evolving into an attention-driven ecosystem centered on content consumption.
Furthermore, social media is increasingly becoming a crucial tool for brand research. More than four in five (84%) of the global online audience utilize at least one social media platform to investigate brands, with Instagram leading the way (62.8%), followed by TikTok and Facebook, according to We Are Social.
The Future of Social Media Marketing
This evolving consumer behavior is driving a shift away from traditional search engines towards discovery-led platforms like Amazon and TikTok for information gathering, as detailed in the latest Voice of the Marketer report by WARC.
Despite a slight cooling in investment enthusiasm, the majority of marketers still anticipate increasing their social media spending. Nearly two in three (59%) global marketers surveyed in the annual WARC Marketer’s Toolkit survey expect to increase their social media budget in 2026. However, this figure represents a decrease from 69% in 2021, when the post-COVID economic recovery fueled a surge in social media ad investment.
The data suggests a maturing social media landscape, where sustained growth requires platforms to adapt to evolving user preferences and cater to increasingly fragmented audiences.
