What does Ofcom’s Online Nation 2024 report tell us about what young people are doing online? I’ve pulled out some of the key things that stood out – you can take a look at the full report here
Gen Z women spending most time online
Those aged 18-24 are the most active online, spending an average of 6 hours and 1 minute daily. In contrast, older age groups, like those 65+ spend far less, 3 hours and 10 minutes.
Women in the 18-24 group spend more than an hour longer online daily than men their age, 6 hours 36 minutes vs 5 hours 28 minutes.
Social media preferences
TikTok and Snapchat are the most popular apps among young people. 18-24s spend around 64 minutes a day on TikTok and 55 minutes per day on Snapchat. Again, there’s a difference in gender, with Gen Z women aged 18-24 are spending more time on TikTok (77 minutes) than men (48 minutes).
Instagram overtook Facebook use among young adults, 81% of 18-24s use Instagram.
Reddit is growing rapidly too, appearing in the top 10 platforms for the first time, reaching 77% of 18-24s in 2024 up from 58% in 2023.
Threads, Meta’s microblogging (and Twitter/X alternative) gained 11% reach among UK adults by July this year, with young users driving adoption – I’ll be keen to see the stats on BlueSky in comparison within a year though.
Online safety and harms
Younger adults are more likely to encounter potential online harms, with 80% of 18-24s reporting experiencing them compared to 55% of those aged 65+. No major surprise when you look at time spend online.
Again a gendered difference, with young women experiencing body image-related content, 25% encounter body stigma and 19% encountering unhealthy eating/exercise content.
Generative AI
Younger audiences were also found to be using AI more than other age groups. Earlier this year Ofcom conducted a survey that found over half (54%) of 8-15s and 41% of 16+ had used a generative Ai tool over the year.
In this report, ChatGPT was found to be the most popular tool, with 37% of 8-15s and 33% of users 16+ had used it in the past year with a peak of 27% of 18-24s using it in May this year.
Devices
Apple iPhones dominate among younger users, 69% of 16-24s prefer iPhone compared to 31% Android.
Attitudes and concerns
Young adults are less likely to believe that they have a good online-offline balance. 21% of 18-24s disagree they have a healthy balance, compared to 7% of those over 54. Older children and teens express increasing concern about time spend online. 51% of 13-15s worry about time online, compared to 35% of 8-9 year olds.
Younger adults 18-24 (11%) and those in a minority ethnic group (10%) were more likely to agree that the risks outweighed the benefits of being online.
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