A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day in Q3 2025 on social media, up from 4.5 hours in Q1, 2023.
The data also showed the ongoing generational divide in social media usage, with Gen Zers spending nearly double the amount of time on social media as millennials, and three times that of Gen Xers and baby boomers/seniors.
While usage rose among Gen Z adults between Q1 2023 and Q3 2025, it declined among all the other age groups surveyed.
Other key findings include:
- Facebook and Instagram were the top two social media platforms in the US. With the exception of TikTok, most Americans surveyed tend to spend less than one hour per day on a specific social media platform. Americans, on average, currently use 2.6 social media platforms, a decline from 3.2 in early 2023.
- Approximately three-quarters (73%) of Gen Z adults and over half (52%) of millennials said they strongly or somewhat agree that they receive better TV and movie recommendations from social media than from online video services compared to much smaller percentages for older respondents.
- Nearly two-thirds (62%) of Gen Z adults reported that they strongly agree/somewhat agree with the statement “I have purchased items/merchandise directly from a social media platform (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok),” while approximately half (47%) of millennials had the same response, compared to 31% of Gen Xers and only 21% of baby boomers/seniors.
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