For the latest survey data on social media and tech use among teens, see “Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2022.” 

24% of teens go online “almost constantly,” facilitated by the widespread availability of smartphones.

Much of this frenzy of access is facilitated by mobile devices. Nearly three-quarters of teens have or have access¹ to a smartphone and 30% have a basic phone, while just 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone of any type. African-American teens are the most likely of any group of teens to have a smartphone, with 85% having access to one, compared with 71% of both white and Hispanic teens. These phones and other mobile devices have become a primary driver of teen internet use: Fully 91% of teens go online from mobile devices at least occasionally. Among these “mobile teens,” 94% go online daily or more often. By comparison, teens who don’t access the internet via mobile devices tend to go online less frequently. Some 68% go online at least daily.

African-American and Hispanic youth report more frequent internet use than white teens. Among African-American teens, 34% report going online “almost constantly” as do 32% of Hispanic teens, while 19% of white teens go online that often.

Facebook is the most popular and frequently used social media platform among teens; half of teens use Instagram, and nearly as many use Snapchat

71% of teens use more than one social network site

Teens are diversifying their social network site use. A majority of teens — 71% — report using more than one social network site out of the seven platform options they were asked about. Among the 22% of teens who only use one site, 66% use Facebook, 13% use Google+, 13% use Instagram and 3% use Snapchat.

This study uses a somewhat different method than Pew Research Center’s previous reports on teens. While both are probability-based, nationally representative samples of American teens, the current survey was administered online, while our previous work involved surveying teens by phone. A great deal of previous research has found that the mode of interview — telephone vs. online self-administration — can affect the results. The magnitude and direction of these effects are difficult to predict, though for most kinds of questions, the fundamental conclusions one would draw from the data will be similar regardless of mode. Accordingly, we will not compare specific percentages from previous research with results from the current survey. But we believe that the broad contours and patterns evident in this web-based survey are comparable to those seen in previous telephone surveys.

Boys are more likely than girls to report that they visit Facebook most often (45% of boys vs. 36% of girls). Girls are more likely than boys to say they use Instagram (23% of girls vs. 17% of boys) and Tumblr (6% of girls compared with less than 1% of boys). Older teens ages 15 to 17 are more likely than younger teens to cite Facebook (44% vs. 35% of younger teens), Snapchat (13% vs. 8%) and Twitter (8% vs. 3%) as a most often used platform, while younger teens ages 13 to 14 are more likely than their older compatriots to list Instagram (25% vs. 17% of older teens) as a platform they visit most often.

Middle and upper income teens lean toward Instagram and Snapchat

The survey data reveals a distinct pattern in social media use by socio-economic status. Teens from less well-off households (those earning less than $50,000) are more likely than others to say they use Facebook the most: 49% of these teens say they use it most often, compared with 37% of teens from somewhat wealthier families (those earning $50,000 or more).

Teens from more affluent households are somewhat more likely than those from the least affluent homes to say they visit Snapchat most often, with 14% of those from families earning more than $75,000 saying Snapchat is their top site, compared with 7% of those whose families earn less than $30,000 annually. Twitter shows a similar pattern by income, with the wealthiest teens using Twitter more than their least well-to-do peers. It should be noted that some of these differences may be artifacts of differences in use of these sites by these different subgroups of teens.

Smartphones facilitate shifts in teens’ communication and information landscape

As American teens adopt smartphones, they have a variety of methods for communication and sharing at their disposal. Texting is an especially important mode of communication for many teens. Some 88% of teens have or have access to cell phones or smartphones and 90% of those teens with phones exchange texts. A typical teen sends and receives 30 texts per day²

And teens are not simply sending messages through the texting system that telephone companies offer. Some 73% of teens have access to smartphones and among them messaging apps like Kik or WhatsApp have caught on. Fully 33% of teens with phones have such apps. And Hispanic and African-American youth with phones are substantially more likely to use messaging apps, with 46% of Hispanic and 47% of African-American teens using a messaging app compared with 24% of white teens.

Girls dominate social media; boys are more likely to play video games

Teenage girls use social media sites and platforms — particularly visually-oriented ones — for sharing more than their male counterparts do. For their part, boys are more likely than girls to own gaming consoles and play video games.

Data for this report was collected for Pew Research Center. The survey was administered online by the GfK Group using its KnowledgePanel, in English and Spanish, to a nationally representative sample of over 1,060 teens ages 13 to 17 and a parent or guardian from September 25 to October 9, 2014 and February 10 to March 16, 2015. In the fall, 1016 parent-teen pairs were interviewed. The survey was re-opened in the spring and 44 pairs were added to the sample. For more on the methods for this study, please visit the Methods section at the end of this report.

Much has changed in recent years when it comes to teenagers and their use of technology. When the Center last surveyed teens, Snapchat did not exist, and Instagram, Tumblr, Vine and a host of other platforms were barely out of their infancy.

As the technology environment has changed, we have also modified our basic methods for surveying teens ages 13 to 17. While both our current and previous methods are probability-based, nationally representative samples of American teens, the current survey was administered online, while our previous work involved surveying teens by phone. A great deal of previous research has found that the mode of interview — telephone vs. online self-administration— can affect the results. The magnitude and direction of these effects are difficult to predict, though for most kinds of questions, the fundamental conclusions one would draw from the data will be similar regardless of mode. This means we will not compare specific percentages from previous research with results from the current survey and we will therefore not include trend data in this report. But we believe that the broad contours and patterns evident in this web-based survey are comparable to those seen in previous telephone surveys.

This report covers the current landscape of teens’ technology use. The survey shows gaps in access to technology which fall along socio-economic, racial and ethnic lines — especially access to desktop and laptop computers, and smartphones. The survey also reveals that a large number of teens are using sites and apps like Instagram and Snapchat. However, adolescents continue to use Facebook, and it is the site that the largest share of teens say they use most often. Facebook is more likely to be cited as the most used site by lower income youth than by higher income teens, while Snapchat is more likely to be a frequently used site for more well-to-do teens.

The survey finds a significant gender gap among teens in online and gaming behaviors. Girls are outpacing boys in their use of text messaging, and in their use of visual social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, online pinboards (like Pinterest and Polyvore), as well as Tumblr and Vine, while boys dominate in the console access and video game playing sphere.

Among Hispanic and African-American youth, there is somewhat less access to desktops, compared with white teens. At the same time, African-American youth have greater access to smartphones than their Hispanic or white counterparts. Minority youth are much more likely to adopt text messaging apps on their phones than their white counterparts. And while Hispanic youth are equally as likely as white teens to use most of the social media platforms that were queried in the survey, Hispanic teens are more likely to report using Google+ than white youth. African-American teens are also substantially more likely than white or Hispanic youth to report playing video games.

Data for this report was collected for Pew Research Center. The survey was administered online by the GfK Group using its KnowledgePanel, in English and Spanish, to a nationally representative sample of 1060 teens ages 13 to 17 and a parent or guardian from September 25 to October 9, 2014 and February 10 to March 16, 2015. In the fall data collection, 1016 parent-teen pairs were interviewed. The survey was re-opened in the spring and 44 pairs were added to the sample. For more on the methods for this study, please visit the Methods section at the back of this report.

In our exploration of teens’ digital technology ownership, we wanted to capture both what teens “owned” — sometimes a tricky concept within families where devices are often shared — and what technology tools teens can access. The survey question that asked about devices asked teens whether they “have or have access to” a list of five tools: smartphones, basic cell phones, desktop or laptop computers, tablets and game consoles. Below is a discussion of teens’ ownership, access to and use of these devices.

Mobile phones

Fully 88% of American teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to a mobile phone of some kind, and a majority of teens (73%) have smartphones. Smartphone users skew more toward older teens with 76% of 15- to 17-year-olds having a smartphone, compared with 68% of 13- to 14-year-olds. About a third of teens (30%) have a “basic” cell phone that is not a smartphone. About 15% of teens have both types of phones. Of teens with a smartphone, 21% also have a basic cell phone. On the flipside, half of teens with a basic phone also have or have access to a smartphone.

African-American teens are the most likely of any racial or ethnic group to have or have access to a smartphone; 85% of African-American teens report smartphone ownership, compared with 71% of white and 71% of Hispanic youth.

Teens from higher income families and households where parents have higher levels of educational attainment are among the most likely to own a smartphone. While 77% of teens whose families earn more than $50,000 a year have a smartphone, two-thirds (64%) of teens from families earning less than that own one. Those teens with lower incomes are the most likely to have a basic cell phone — with 39% of teens from households earning less than $30,000 annually reporting basic cell ownership compared with 28% of teens from households earning more.

Desktops, laptops and tablets

Fully 87% of American teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to a desktop or laptop computer, and 58% of teens have or have access to a tablet computer.

White teens are more likely to report having a desktop or laptop computer — with 91% of white teens owning a desktop or laptop compared with 82% of Hispanic youth and 79% of African-American youth. Household income and parents’ educational level are also factors in teens’ access to desktops or laptops. Teens whose families earn less than $50,000 a year are less likely to have access to a desktop or laptop, though even among these groups, eight out of ten teens (80%) have these machines. And among more well-to-do teens, 91% own or have access to desktops or laptops.

As with larger desktop and laptop computers, family income plays a role in whether teens have access to tablets. Fully (46%) of teens from households earning less than $50,000 a year have access to a tablet, while closer to two-thirds (63%) of wealthier teens have them.

There are also modest gender differences in tablet access, with 62% of girls reporting access to a tablet compared with 54% of boys. There are no differences by race or ethnicity in tablet access.

Game consoles

Some 81% of teens 13 to 17 have or have access to a game console such as a Playstation, Xbox or Wii. Fully 91% of teen boys own game consoles, while 70% of girls say they have or have access to a console. White teens are a bit more likely than Hispanic teens to have a game console with 85% of whites and 84% of African-Americans³ owing consoles compared with 71% of Hispanic youth. Teens in households earning less than $30,000 annually are less likely to have a console, though about two-thirds (67%) of these families have them. By contrast, 83% of families earning more own console game systems.

Overall, teens have relatively robust levels of access to tech devices. The majority of youth have access to three or four of the five items asked about on the survey — desktop or laptop computer, smartphone, basic phone, tablet and game console. Fully seven-in-ten teens have or have access to three or four of those items; about 1% of teens own no devices and just 4% say they only have or have access to one.

Accessing the internet on mobile devices

The survey shows that 91% of teens go online from a mobile device, at least occasionally.⁴ African-American teens are significantly more likely than whites or Hispanics to use mobile devices to go online — with nearly all African-American youth in the study reporting mobile internet access at least occasionally, while 90% of white and 91% of Hispanic teens go online on-the-go.

Internet use is a near ‘constant’ for some teens

Teens ages 13 to 17 are also going online frequently. Aided by the convenience and constant access provided by mobile phones, 92% of teens report going online daily — with 24% using the internet “almost constantly,” 56% going online several times a day, and 12% reporting once-a-day use. Just 6% of teens report going online weekly, and 2% go online less often.

Much of this frenzy of access is facilitated by mobile phones — particularly smartphones. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of teens have a smartphone while just 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone of any type. Fully 91% of teens go online from mobile devices at least occasionally, and 94% of these mobile teens go online daily or more often, compared with 68% of teens who do not use mobile devices to go online.

African-American and Hispanic youth report going online with greater frequency than white teens. About a third (34%) of African-American teens and 32% of Hispanic teens report going online “almost constantly,” while 19% of white teens go online that often. White teens are more likely to say they go online several times a day — the most commonly expressed frequency of internet access across all groups.

Youth from well-to-do families go online more frequently than youth from the least wealthy households; nearly all (93%) teens from homes earning more than $30,000 annually go online daily, compared with 86% of those from households earning $30,000 or less.

Texting

Texting has undergone a change in the past several years with the advent of smartphone-based messaging apps that have added features and changed the cost, message length and other structures around sending short messages. Fully 91% of teen cell owners use text messaging — either directly through their mobile phones or through an app or a website.

In a testament to the shifting landscape of texting, one third (33%) of teens with cell phones use messaging apps like Kik or WhatsApp. These apps are more likely to be used by Hispanic and African-American youth who own cell phones, with 46% of Hispanic teens and 47% of African-American teens using messaging apps to send texts, compared with one-quarter (24%) of white teens with cell phones. Teens on the lower end of the income spectrum are also more likely to use messaging apps on their smartphones, with 39% of cell-owning teens from households earning less than $50,000 annually using the apps, compared with 31% of teens from wealthier families. Girls are also a bit more likely than boys to use messaging apps, with 37% of cell-owning girls using them compared with 29% of boys with cell phones. Use of these apps varies little by the age of the teen.

The number of text messages sent or received by cell phone owning teens ages 13 to 17 (directly through phone or on apps on the phone) on a typical day is 30.⁵ The number of messages exchanged for girls is higher, typically sending and receiving 40 messages a day. And for the oldest girls (15 to 17), this rises to a median of 50 messages exchanged daily.

Among teens with cell phones, those from less well-off families are more likely than others to report that they simply don’t send text messages. Some 18% of teens from families earning less than $30,000 annually report that they do not text, compared with less than 7% for those in higher-earning families.

Online Pinboards

Online pinboards are sites like Pinterest or Polyvore where users can “pin” online content to create highly visual displays of images and information for inspiration, purchase or construction. One-in-five teens — 22% — use online pinboards. Girls, especially older ones, are the major users of these sites, with 33% of girls and 11% of boys using the boards. A quarter of older teens pin on pinboards as do 16% of younger teens. The oldest girls ages 15 to 17 are the most likely to pin, with 38% using online boards.

Discussion boards

One-in-six teens (17%) read or comment on discussion boards like reddit or Digg. There are few differences among teens in use of these online boards by age or gender or any other major demographic category.

Anonymous apps and sites

Whisper, Yik Yak and Ask.FM are three examples of anonymous sharing apps or sites where individuals can ask questions or post confessional text or images anonymously. Just 11% of teens with cell phones report using anonymous question or sharing apps. Girls are a bit more likely to visit these sites than boys, with 13% of girls with cell phones using anonymous sharing or question sites while 8% of boys with cell phones report the same. Hispanic teens are nearly twice as likely as white teens to use these platforms, with 16% of Hispanic youth using anonymous sharing or question platforms compared with 9% of whites. And just 6% of the least well-off teens (those whose parents earn less $30,000 a year) visit anonymous sites, compared with 12% of teens from more well-to-do homes.

Playing video games

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of teens play video games online or on their phone — 84% of boys and 59% of girls — play such games. African-American teens are substantially more likely to report playing video games than their white or Hispanic counterparts; 83% of African-American teens play games compared with 71% of white and 69% of black teens.⁶ Teens who play video games cross the socio-economic spectrum evenly, with little variation by family income or education.

Video call and chat

Some 47% of teens talk with others over video connections such as Skype, Oovoo, Facetime and Omegle. Older girls are the most enthusiastic chatters with 54% of them video calling or chatting with others compared with 44% of all other teens. And 53% of Hispanic teens video chat and call, a bit more than the 43% of white teens who report talking by video.

Social Media

Teens are enthusiastic users of social media sites and apps. When asked a general question about whether they used social media, three-quarters (76%) of teens use social media, and 81% of older teens use the sites, compared with 68% of teens 13 to 14.

When asked about seven specific sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+ and Vine), and given the option to report another site used, 89% of all teens reported that they used at least one of the sites and two-thirds of teens (71%) reported using two or more sites. Among the 18% of teens who only use one site, 66% use Facebook, 13% use Google+ and 13% use Instagram. Just 3% of the single site users use Snapchat, and another 2% say they use a site we didn’t ask about in the list, including Wattpad (a reading site), Youtube, Oovoo and ifunny, among others. Less than 2% (each) report using Twitter, Vine or Tumblr as their sole social media platform. Below is an analysis of teens’ use of social media, organized by major platform.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular of all the social media platforms included in the survey, with 71% of all teens saying they use Facebook. Boys and girls are equally likely to report using the platform, but older users ages 15 to 17 are more likely to use it than younger users 13 to 14. Much of the difference is located within the youngest age group — the 13-year-olds — of whom less than half (44%) say they use Facebook, while of 77% of 14- to 17-year-olds report use.

Teens from somewhat less well-off households are more likely to report using Facebook than teens from wealthier homes; 77% of teens from families earning less than $50,000 annually use Facebook, while 68% of teens from households earning more say they use the platform.

Use of Facebook is relatively consistent across racial and ethnic groups. Urban teens report more use of Facebook than teens from the suburbs, with 77% of urban teens on the site, compared with two-thirds (67%) of suburban teens.

Adult use of Facebook has plateaued in recent years, with 71% of online adults using the site. However, Facebook’s user base remains quite active, with 70% of Facebook users engaging with the site daily. For more details on adult use of Facebook, please read Social Media Update 2014.

Facebook users typically have 145 friends

Among Facebook-using teens, the typical teen has 145 Facebook friends.⁷ Breaking it down, the largest group of teens — 30% — say they have Facebook networks of 0 to 100 friends. Another 12% report networks of 101-200 friends and 9% say 201 to 300 friends. And 15% say they have more than 300 friends. Tellingly, one-third of teens say they are not sure how many Facebook friends they have. Analyzing typical (median) friend counts for different subgroups of Facebook-using teens, we see some substantial variations. Boys report 100 friends to girls’ 175. Young teens 13 to 14 typically report smaller networks (91 friends) compared with older teens 15 to 17 who typically have 168 friends. Networks vary in typical size from 84 amongst the youngest boys to 200 friends among girls 15 to 17.

Instagram

First launched in 2010, Instagram has become a mainstay for adolescent social media users. More than half (52%) of all teens report using Instagram to share photos and video with friends, with girls substantially more likely to use it than boys (61% to 44%). Much of the difference between boys and girls is accounted for by the youngest boys (ages 13 to 14) of whom only 33% use Instagram, compared with half of older boys (ages 15 to 17) and more than half of the younger girls. The heaviest users of Instagram are the oldest girls of whom 64% share photos on Instagram.

The typical teen’s Instagram network has 150 followers.

The typical American teen who uses Instagram has 150 followers in their network. Girls outpace boys in their typical number of followers, with girls reporting a median of 200 followers on Instagram compared with 100 followers for boys. There is little variation in the number of followers between younger and older cohorts of teens. And fully 39% of Instagramming teens are not sure how many followers they have.

Use of Instagram is not just confined to teens; 21% of American adults use the photo and video sharing platform. As with Twitter, young adults ages 18 to 29 are the most likely to use Instagram. The service is also popular with adult women, Hispanics, African-Americans, and urban and suburban dwellers. For more data on adult use of Instagram, please visit our Social Media Update 2014.

Snapchat

Snapchat is another relatively new photo and video focused sharing app that teens have embraced in the last two and half years. Two-in-five American teens (41%) use Snapchat to share images and videos that are then automatically deleted within a predetermined amount of time — usually a few seconds. (At least that is the way the firm describes how the service works. In practice, there are many workarounds that allow viewers to capture images.) By a wide margin, girls and older teens are the most likely to send snaps — with half of girls using the service, compared with 31% of boys. Similarly, 47% of older teens 15 to 17 send snaps, while 31% of younger teens do so. Older girls are the most likely of any teen group to use to service, with 56% using Snapchat. Teens from the lowest income households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely to use the service, with 30% of them sending snaps, while 43% of wealthier teens send them.

Twitter

A third (33%) of all teens use Twitter. Older teens are more likely to use the service than younger, with use rising steadily as teens age, from just 13% of 13-year-olds using the service to 28% of 14-year-olds and 43% of 17-year-olds. The oldest girls ages 15 to 17 are the most likely to use Twitter with nearly half of them (49%) using it. This study does not show statistically significant differences by race, locale or a teen’s socio-economic status.

Typical Twitter users have 95 followers.

Among teens who use Twitter, the typical Twitter user has 95 followers — though 44% of teen Twitterers are not sure how many followers they have. Digging deeper into subgroups of teens, girls outpace boys in numbers of followers, with the typical girl reporting 116 followers to 61 for the typical boy. The differences are even more extreme between younger teens and older; 13- and 14- year-olds report a median of 30 followers compared with 103 followers for older teens.

Among all adults 18 and older, 19% use Twitter. Young adults 18 to 29 are the most likely to use the platform with 37% using the service. Since 2013, Twitter has seen growth among whites, men, those earning $50,000 or more, college graduates and urban dwellers. For more data on use of Twitter by adults, please see our Social Media Update 2014.

Google+

Google+ is a social network that comes as a part of a suite of Google-offered tools through an account on the service. A third of teens (33%) say they use Google+. Hispanic teens are more likely to use Google+ than white or African-American youth; 48% of Hispanic youth use Google+, compared to a little more than one-quarter (26%) of white teens and 29% of African-American teenagers.

And teens from families with somewhat lower levels of education (parents with a high school diploma or some college experience) are more likely to use the service (35%) than teens from families with parents with a college degree, where a bit more than one quarter (27%) of teens report a Google+ account. Given that schools are increasingly adopting Gmail and other Google tools to use with students in and out of school, many youth have access to Google+ through tools for school work.

Vine

Roughly one quarter of teens (24%) use Vine, an app that allows users to record and share short, six-second videos. Vine is used by more girls than boys, with 27% of young women using the app compared with 20% of young men. As with many social photo and video platforms, the oldest girls ages 15 to 17 are the most likely to use Vine, with 29% of them reporting use. Use of Vine is evenly spread across income groups, education, and racial and ethnic groups.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a microblogging service where users can curate and share posts of mostly visual content they create themselves or find elsewhere on the web. About one-in-seven (14%) teens use Tumblr. Tumblr is predominately used by girls in this age group with 23% of girls 13 to 17 using the service, compared with just 5% of boys the same age. Much of this is driven by the oldest girls (ages 15 to 17) of whom 27% report using Tumblr. Overall, older teens are modestly more likely to use Tumblr than younger teens, with 10% of 13- to 14-year-olds and 16% of 15- to 17-year-olds using it.

Facebook is used most often by the bulk of teens, but access varies, based on family income

When asked to rank social media sites by their frequency of use, Facebook is the platform that teens report that they use most often, with 41% of youth saying they use it most. Instagram is the next most often used social media platform, with 20% of teens saying they use it most often. Fully 11% of teens say Snapchat is the social site they use most, and another 6% say Twitter.

The data shows a split in social media use by socio-economic status. Less well-off teens from families earning less than $30,000 annually remain more connected to Facebook, with 51% saying they use it most, compared with 38% of teens from wealthier families. More well-to-do teens instead are significantly more likely than the least well-off teens to say they visit Snapchat most, with 14% of those from families earning more than $75,000 saying Snapchat is their top social media platform, compared with 7% of teens whose families earn less than $30,000 annually. There is a similar pattern by income around Twitter, with the wealthiest teens shifting to Twitter more than their least well-to-do peers.

The youngest teens — the 13-year-olds — divide their loyalties between Facebook and Instagram, with a bit more than a quarter of teens this age reporting they use each of these platforms most often. Teens 14 and older are more likely to have Facebook as their most often visited site. Indeed the youngest girls (ages 13 and 14) are the most likely to report using Instagram most often of any age/gender group, with 31% reporting Instagram as their most often visited platform.

Boys are more likely than girls to give Facebook as their most visited site, with 45% of boys reporting that, compared with 36% of teen girls. Girls are more likely than boys to report Instagram as their most often visited site, with 23% of girls and 17% of boys saying it is their most visited platform. Older teens are more likely than younger teens to list Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter as their most often visited platforms, though for Snapchat this is driven by great use among 15- to 17-year-old girls. Urban teens are most likely to say they visit Facebook most often, while suburban teens report visiting Instagram more than their urban peers.

Many teens who use multiple online social network sites report “some” overlap in their online personal social networks

When asked to think about how much overlap they have with various friends on the different social networks they use, the largest group of teens who use multiple social media platforms report that there is “some” overlap in their friends on the different sites. More than half (57%) of teens describe their networks as having some overlap across sites. Another three-in-ten teens (29%) have tight networks — reporting that their networks are composed of the same people on every social site they visit. And 9% say there is “not a lot” of overlap in their friends across social media sites. Another 4% of teens are compartmentalizers, who report no overlap of friends across the social sites they visit.

Teens who use more than one social media platform and come from households earning less than $75,000 per year are more likely to say they have the same friends across all of their networks, with 35% of teens in these income brackets reporting the same friends, compared with 23% of teens from the wealthiest homes. Teens from higher income households (earning $50,000 and above) are substantially more likely to report that they have some overlap among friends across their different social networks, with 61% reporting some overlap, compared with 48% of those earning less. Teens from households that earn less than $50,ooo a year are more likely than wealthier teens to report that they have completely compartmentalized their social network platforms, with no overlap of friends across the different sites they use. Fully 7% of households earning less than $50,000 say they have no overlap in friends, compared with 2% of teens from families that earn more.

Study Design & Documentation

The Pew Research Center’s Teen Relationship Study was funded, designed and analyzed by Center staff. Fieldwork was conducted by the GfK Group (GfK, formerly Knowledge Networks.) Specifically, the survey examined the attitudes of teenagers age 13 to 17 years old, as well as those of their parents, toward technology. The survey examined friendships and romantic relationships within the context of technology use. The survey was conducted using sample from KnowledgePanel.

Sample Definition

The target population consists of the following: parents of teens age 13 to 17 and teens 13 to 17 years old residing in the United States. To sample the population, GfK sampled households from its KnowledgePanel, a probability-based web panel designed to be representative of the United States. The survey consisted of three stages: initial screening for the parents of teens age 13 to 17, the parent survey, and the teen survey.

The main data collection field periods were from September 25, 2014 through October 9, 2014 and from February 10, 2015 to March 16, 2015. In the fall, 1016 parent-teen pairs were interviewed. The survey was re-opened in the spring and 44 pairs were added to the sample. The second data collection was targeted toward African-American parents and teenagers, with the intent of increasing the number of African-American teens in the sample to reportable levels. Parents completed the parent section of the survey in 6 minutes (median). Teens completed the teen section of the survey in 16 minutes (median). The survey was conducted in English and Spanish. Parents and teens could select different languages for the survey.

Survey Completion and Sample Sizes

The number of respondents sampled and participating in the survey, the survey completion rates for the screener and main interview, and the incidence/eligibility rate are presented below.

Key Survey Response Statistics: In-Field Screening

• N Sampled for Screener: 4111
• N Complete Screener: 1637
• Screener Survey Completion Rate: 39.8%
• Qualified for Main Survey: 1060
• Incidence Rate: 64.7%

While 1084 parents completed the parent section of the main survey, 1060 teens completed the teen section of the main survey; the 24 unpaired parents were not included in the final counts. The margin of error for the full sample of teens (n=1060) or parents (n=1060) is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Please see the adjacent chart for the margin of error for subsamples in this study.

Survey Cooperation Enhancements

As a standard, email reminders to non-responders were sent on day three of the field period. Beyond the standard email reminder on day three of the field period, the following steps were also taken:

• Additional email reminders to non-responders were sent on day 7 of the field period;
• Teens received a cash-equivalent of $5 for their participation;

Documentation regarding KnowledgePanel sampling, data collection procedures, weighting, and IRB-bearing issues are available at the below online resources.

• http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp/reviewer-info.html
• http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/knpanel/index.html
• http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp/irbsupport/

KnowledgePanel Methods Information

Complete and current information about KnowledgePanel sampling and recruitment methodology and design is available at: http://www.gfk.com/Documents/GfK-KnowledgePanel-Design-Summary.pdf

KnowledgePanel’s recruitment process uses an Address Based Sampling (ABS) methodology for selecting panel members. This probability-based sampling methodology improves population coverage, and provides a more effective sampling infrastructure for recruitment of hard-to-reach individuals, such as young adults and those from various minority groups. It should be noted that under the ABS recruitment households without Internet connection are provided with a web-enabled device and free Internet service.

After initially accepting the invitation to join the panel, participants are asked to complete a short demographic survey (the initial profile survey); answers to which allow efficient panel sampling and weighting for future surveys. Completion of the profile survey allows participants to become panel members, and as in the past, all respondents are provided the same privacy terms and confidentiality protections.

ABS Recruitment

The ABS recruitment protocol relies on probability-based sampling of addresses from the United States Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File (DSF). The key advantage of the ABS methodology is that it allows sampling of almost all United States households. Regardless of household telephone status, all households can be reached and contacted through postal mail. Pre-identified ancillary information about addresses was used to construct and target households in the following four sampling strata:

• Hispanic ages 18-29
• Non-Hispanic ages 18-29
• Hispanic ages 30+
• Non-Hispanic ages 30+

As detailed below, specific adjustments are applied to compensate for any oversampling that is carried out to improve the demographic composition of the panel.

Randomly sampled addresses from the DSF are invited to join KnowledgePanel through a series of mailings, including an initial invitation letter, a reminder postcard, and a subsequent follow-up letter. Given that approximately 45% of the physical addresses can be matched to a corresponding landline telephone number, about 5 weeks after the initial mailing, telephone refusal-conversion calls are made to households for whom a telephone number was matched to the sampled address. Invited households can join the panel by:

• Completing and mailing back a paper form in a postage-paid envelope
• Calling a toll-free hotline phone number maintained by GfK
• Going to a designated GfK website and completing the recruitment form at the website

Household Member Recruitment.

For all recruitment efforts, during the initial recruitment survey, all household members are enumerated. Following enumeration, attempts are made to recruit every household member who is at least 13 years old to participate in KnowledgePanel surveys. For household members aged 13 to 17, consent is collected from the parents or the legal guardian during the initial recruitment interview. If no consent is given, no further direct communication with the teenagers is attempted.

Survey Sampling from KnowledgePanel

For this survey, a nationally representative sample of U.S. parents of teens age 13 to 17 was selected. The general sampling rule is to assign no more than one survey per week to individual members. Allowing for rare exceptions during some weeks, this limits a member’s total assignments per month to four or six surveys.

Survey Administration

Once assigned to a survey, members receive a notification email letting them know there is a new survey available for them to take. This email notification contains a link that sends them to the survey questionnaire.

After three days, automatic email reminders are sent to all non-responding panel members in the sample. If email reminders do not generate a sufficient response, an automated telephone reminder call can be initiated. The usual protocol is to wait at least three to four days after the email reminder before calling. To assist panel members with their survey taking, each individual has a personalized “home page” that lists all the surveys that were assigned to that member and have yet to be completed.

GfK also operates an ongoing modest incentive program to encourage participation and create member loyalty. Members can enter special raffles or can be entered into special sweepstakes with both cash rewards and other prizes to be won.

The typical survey commitment for panel members is one survey per week or four per month with duration of 10 to 15 minutes per survey. In the case of longer surveys, an additional incentive is typically provided.

Sample Weighting

For selection of general population samples from the Knowledge Panel (KP), however, a patented methodology has been developed that ensures the resulting samples behave as EPSEM (Equal Probability of Selection Method) samples. Briefly, this methodology starts by weighting the entire KP to the benchmarks secured from the latest March supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) along several dimensions. This way, the weighted distribution of the Knowledge Panel matches that of the US adults – even with respect to the few dimensions where minor misalignments may result from differential attrition rates.

Study-Specific Post-Stratification Weights

Once the study sample has been selected and fielded, and all the survey data are edited and made final, design weights are adjusted for any survey nonresponse as well as any under- or over-coverage imposed by the study-specific sample design. Depending on the specific target population for a given study, geo-demographic distributions for the corresponding population are obtained from the CPS, the American Community Survey (ACS) or in certain instances from the weighted KP profile data. For this purpose an iterative proportional fitting (raking) procedure is used to produce final weights that will be aligned with respect to all study benchmark distributions simultaneously. In the final step, calculated weights are examined to identify and, if necessary, trim outliers at the extreme upper and lower tails of the weight distribution. The resulting weights are then scaled to the sum of the total sample size of all eligible respondents.

For this study, the following benchmark distributions of parents with teens age 13 to 17 from the 2010-2012 American Community Survey (ACS) were used for the raking adjustment of weights for parents (par_weight):

• Gender (Male/Female) by Age (18–39, 40–49, and 50+)
• Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Metropolitan Area (Yes, No) by Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
• Education (Less than High School, High School, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
• Household income (under $25k, $25K to <$50k, $50K to <$75k, $75K to <$100k, $100K+)
• Primary Language (English-dominant, Bilingual, Spanish-dominant, Non-Hispanic)
• Age (18–39, 40–49, and 50+) by Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Gender (Male/Female) By Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic) (collapsed metro status together for Others/2+ Races because of not enough cases))
• Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West) by Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Education (Less than High School, High School, Some College, Bachelor and beyond) by Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic) (collapsed HS/LHS for AA and HS/LHS for Others/2+ Races)
• Household income (under $25k, $25K to <$50k, $50K to <$75k, $75K to <$100k, $100K+) by Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic) (collapsed income into two categories for Others/2+ Races — (under $50K, $50K+))
• Metropolitan Area (Yes, No) by Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic) (collapsed metro status together for Others/2+ Races because of not enough cases)

The following benchmark distributions of children age 13 to 17 from the 2014 March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) were used for the raking adjustment of weights for teens (teen_weight):

• Gender (Male/Female) by Age (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
• Teen Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Metropolitan Area (Yes, No) by Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
• Age (13, 14, 15, 16, 17) by Teen Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Gender (Male/Female) by Teen Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West) by Teen Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Metropolitan Area (Yes, No) by Teen Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Parental Education (Less than High School, High School, Some College, Bachelor and beyond) by Parental Race/Hispanic ethnicity (White/Non-Hispanic, Black/Non-Hispanic, Other/Non-Hispanic, 2+ Races/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic) (collapsed HS/LHS for AA and HS/LHS for Others/2+ Races)

The starting weight for the teen’s is the final parent weight multiplied by the number of children age 13 to 17 years old in the household (1, 2+).

Detailed information on the demographic distributions of the benchmarks is available upon request. Please contact Amanda Lenhart at alenhart@pewresearch.org for more information about the study methodology.