YouTube is the most widely used of all the online platforms we’ve asked about in the United States. The video-based platform serves as a forum for entertainers, commentators, businesses and others, and Americans use it in a variety of ways, from getting the news to learning new skills.
The platform marked its 20th anniversary in February. To mark the occasion, here are five key findings about YouTube from our research:
More U.S. adults use YouTube than any other online platform we’ve asked about. As of 2024, 85% of adults say they ever use YouTube. That exceeds the share who say they ever use Facebook (70%), Instagram (50%) and other social media sites and apps.
Across age groups, majorities of adults use YouTube. More than nine-in-ten adults under 50 say they use the site, as do 86% of adults ages 50 to 64. Even among adults 65 and older – who are generally less likely than younger people to use various online platforms – 65% use the video sharing platform. Only one other online platform we’ve asked about, Facebook, is used by a majority of adults 65 and older (59% do so).
An overwhelming majority of U.S. teens also use YouTube. Nine-in-ten U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 say they ever use YouTube, though this is down slightly from 95% in 2022. And most teens go on YouTube daily (73%). This includes 15% who say they use the platform almost constantly.
Around a third of U.S. adults say they regularly get news from YouTube. The share of Americans who get news on YouTube has risen in recent years, from 23% in 2020 to 32% in 2024.
In 2020, news consumers were more likely to regularly get news from Facebook (36%) than YouTube (23%). But as of 2024, U.S. adults are just as likely to get news from YouTube (32%) as they are from Facebook (33%).
And news consumption differs by gender. News consumers on YouTube are more likely to be men than women (57% vs. 42%).
Around a quarter of adult YouTube users in the U.S. (24%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on any social media site. A recent Pew Research Center analysis of news influencers found that 44% of those in our sample are on YouTube, though most news influencers on YouTube also have a presence on several other sites.
Among these YouTube news influencers, 68% are men, while 28% are women. And a slightly larger share explicitly express a right-leaning political orientation (28%) than a left-leaning one (21%). Another 46% don’t express any clear political orientation.
The vast majority of news influencers on YouTube (88%) have not worked in the news industry. Yet most still find ways to generate income from their work: 80% of YouTube news influencers monetize their content in some way, whether through subscriptions, donations or merchandise.