Astonishing figures:

Social media use among young people on the decline

The most popular app among Austria's young people is WhatsApp - despite a significant decline.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

Anyone using the subway in Vienna may find it hard to believe, given that people are almost exclusively engrossed in their cell phones: but social media use is apparently on the decline among Austria's youth. At least that was the finding of the Youth Internet Monitor 2024 by the EU initiative Saferinternet.at, which was published on Tuesday. 400 children and young people aged eleven to 17 in Austria were surveyed.

WhatsApp and YouTube in particular have lost a massive number of users. Only the instant photo app BeReal recorded significant gains. Nevertheless, State Secretary for Youth Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP), whose State Secretariat in the Federal Chancellery supported the survey carried out by the Institute for Youth Culture Research, said: "The study shows once again that social media are an important part of young people's lives. This is precisely why it is important for us to show that social media does not always reflect reality."

WhatsApp ahead of Instagram and YouTube
The number one most popular internet platform this year is once again WhatsApp: three out of four young people said they use it, 77% of whom use WhatsApp every day. This was closely followed by Instagram and YouTube with 71% usage, 68% of which is daily, and 70% usage, one in two of which is daily. However, there were massive declines, especially for WhatsApp with minus 20 percentage points and YouTube with minus 24 percentage points.

The study results in detail:

(Bild: saferinternet.at)

Due to the large number of platforms with sometimes very similar functions, established social networks are becoming increasingly less important among 11 to 17-year-olds, according to Saferinternet.at. Communication between young people has long been taking place via channels other than WhatsApp. YouTube is becoming less and less relevant, especially among younger people, as all major networks now rely on the integration of videos. The increasing use of established platforms by parents and grandparents may also be playing a role, the experts suspected. In order to differentiate themselves, young people are increasingly moving away from large services and turning to newer platforms where they still feel undisturbed.

TikTok takes fourth place in Austria
TikTok came fourth in this year's Youth Internet Monitor: The video app managed to overtake Snapchat (61 percent overall, 72 percent daily) for the first time with 65 percent usage overall, 72 percent of which was daily. The photo-sharing app Snapchat recorded the third-largest loss year-on-year with a drop of eight percentage points.

The digital pinboard Pinterest remains in the top six with a usage of 42%. BeReal continued to grow this year and is now in eighth place with the largest increase of 13 percentage points (total usage: 31%). X (formerly Twitter) also grew by six percentage points (total usage: 24%). Telegram landed in 14th place with a share of 18% usage.

Usage behavior varies between boys and girls
There were major differences in the use of social media between the genders. WhatsApp, for example, is much more popular with girls (89% of users) than with boys (65%). The same applies to Pinterest (girls: 53%, boys: 31%), Snapchat (girls: 72%, boys: 52%), Instagram (girls: 79%, boys: 63%) and YouTube (girls: 76%, boys 65%).

In contrast, the gaming platforms Discord (girls: 13%, boys: 48%) and Twitch (girls: 7%, boys: 39%) continue to be used by significantly more male adolescents. X (girls: eleven percent, boys 35 percent) and the messenger services Telegram (girls: ten percent, boys 25 percent) and Signal (girls: eleven percent, boys 26 percent) are also more popular among young males.

The use of the chatbot ChatGPT was also surveyed. This showed that 71% of respondents had used this tool at least once, particularly young males (78%). It is striking that there is no difference between the age group of 11 to 14-year-olds (70%) and 15 to 17-year-olds (71%). ChatGPT is primarily used directly on the OpenAI platform (81%), followed by the Snapchat chatbot My AI (28%). Only eight percent use ChatGPT via Microsoft's Bing search engine. There are gender-specific differences, especially with the chatbot My AI, which is mainly used by female teenagers (41%, boys: 19%).