Daniel Harrison TikTok continues to lead YouTube as the social app that adolescents use the most frequently throughout the day. Younger users, defined as those between the ages of 4 and 18, started using TikTok at a higher rate than YouTube did on a daily basis in June 2020, and that trend has continued.
According to new data from parental control software maker Qustodio, TikTok’s daily average viewing time among children aged 12-17 was 82 minutes in June 2020, surpassing YouTube’s daily average viewing time among the same demographic by 5 minutes.
It was reported that by 2022, the average daily use of TikTok among children had increased to a whopping 107 minutes, or 60% longer than the time kids spent watching video content on YouTube (67 minutes). By a wide margin, TikTok’s average daily usage among the under-18 demographic surpassed that of other video apps like Netflix (48 minutes) and Disney+ (40 minutes), as well as other social apps like Snapchat (72 minutes), Instagram (45 minutes), Facebook (20 minutes), Pinterest (16 minutes), and Twitter (10 minutes).
TikTok’s addictive video content was viewed, on average, 113 minutes per day in this market, compared to 77 minutes for YouTube, 52 minutes for Netflix, 90 minutes for Snapchat, and 20 minutes for Pinterest. This is while the United States struggles with TikTok bans on college campuses and in the government.
However, not all of the news is bad for YouTube. The study found that the average amount of time spent on YouTube per day increased by 20% from the previous year, reaching 67 minutes. This is the highest amount of time spent on YouTube reported annually by Qustodio. Sixty-three percent of children around the world used YouTube in 2022, giving the platform a sizable boost in both market share and mindshare last year.
The report also provided a more in-depth analysis of a select group of leading markets, noting that 60% of American children use YouTube, compared with 67% in the United Kingdom, 73% in Spain, and 58% in Australia. Netflix came in second, with 39% of the global kid market, as the most popular video service.
On average, children under the age of 18 spent 45 minutes per day in 2022 watching long-form video on platforms like YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Prime Videos, and others, representing an increase of 18% from the previous year.
The year also saw success for streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which saw year-over-year growth of 7% and 10%, respectively, among the under-18 set, assuming that they were used at all. Though people watch Prime Video for an average of 34 minutes per day, that’s a 15% year-over-year decrease. The same percentage of time was lost on Disney+, falling from 47 minutes per day in 2020 to 40 minutes per day in 2022. While 16% of all viewers were under the age of 18, in 2020 that number dropped to 11% for Twitch.
The popularity of TikTok among young people has prompted other tech giants to produce their own versions of short videos in an effort to keep up. YouTube Shorts is the platform’s answer to this predicament. This month, Google announced that the number of daily views of Shorts has surpassed 50 billion. Of course, Instagram has been force-feeding Reels into its experience, and the company has been met with criticism for the alterations. Even Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, acknowledged earlier this year that there are “too many videos” being promoted to users.
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It’s unclear if trying to force Reels onto Instagram has been successful. According to Qustodio, the app is no longer one of the top five social media platforms among users under the age of 18 in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia. The global rankings showed that it was still the fifth most popular social media platform among children, behind TikTok, Facebook (38 percent of children worldwide use it), Snapchat, and Pinterest.
Although the software company chose to focus on Roblox, they did so alongside other video games. Roblox is a social network of sorts, frequented by children all over the world. Kids around the world spent an average of 180 minutes per day playing the game, an increase of 4 percent from the previous year. That’s longer than players spend on the No. 2 game, Minecraft (up 37% to 48 minutes), the No. 3 game, Clash Royale, the No. 4 game, Brawl Stars, the No. 5 game, and the No. 6 game, What Would You Choose?
