Do US and UK teenagers use the same platforms the same way?

No. "The Big Five", a Dubit Trends study of 3,009 households in the US and UK published in February 2026, found the two markets use the same five platforms differently.¹ WhatsApp is one example: among 13 to 15 year olds, 76.6% in the UK use it daily, against 33.0% in the US.² In the US, sharing leans to public platforms. In the UK it is split almost evenly between public platforms and private messages.³

WhatsApp moves in opposite directions with age. In the UK, daily use rises from 60.2% of 10 to 12 year olds to 76.6% of 13 to 15 year olds. In the US it falls, from 41.4% to 33.0%.²

Snapchat swaps places between the two age bands. Among 10 to 12 year olds, 41.8% in the US use it daily, against 30.1% in the UK. Among 13 to 15 year olds the UK leads, at 57.4% against 46.7% in the US.⁴ UK teens use Snapchat for messaging at 38.6%, against 19.9% in the US. In the same study, that puts Snapchat messaging among UK teens above WhatsApp messaging, at 35.8%.⁵

Sharing differs too. In the US, 33 to 35% share on public platforms and 8 to 10% by private message. Young people in the UK are close to parity between the two. Among the 452 US young people who share digitally, 60.8% share only on TikTok and 24.6% only on WhatsApp. Among the 209 in the UK, 58.9% share only on WhatsApp and 23.9% only on TikTok.³

Instagram splits by gender in the UK and not in the US. In the UK, 34.2% of girls use Instagram daily, against 20.1% of boys. In the US the figures are 57.3% for girls and 58.9% for boys.⁶ What young people follow on each platform is on our page about how TikTok differs from YouTube.

What device do teenagers watch YouTube on?

Mostly a smartphone, though less often than on other platforms. In Dubit's Big Five study, 71.6% of teen YouTube users access it on a smartphone.⁷ For TikTok the share is 87.3%, for Snapchat 92.8% and for Instagram 88.5%. Among 13 to 15 year olds, 40.4% use YouTube on a TV, against 5.7% for Instagram and 1.8% for Snapchat.

Across all 802 YouTube users in the study, the TV comes first.⁸ Of them, 53.1% access YouTube on a TV, 50.1% on a tablet and 42.1% on a smartphone. YouTube is the only one of the five platforms where the TV comes ahead of the smartphone. The smartphone share is 76.2% for Snapchat, 76.0% for WhatsApp, 73.6% for Instagram and 67.7% for TikTok.

Young people also use YouTube on more devices than other platforms. Among 10 to 15 year olds, 56.2% of YouTube users use it on two or more devices, 1.90 on average. On Snapchat the share is 18.7%, at 1.27 devices on average.⁹ It is 20.3% on WhatsApp, 30.4% on TikTok and 33.8% on Instagram. The smartphone overtakes the tablet for YouTube at 10 to 12, later than for the social platforms, where it does so by 1 to 5 or 6 to 9.

Who has age-by-age data on how teenagers use social platforms?

Dubit does. Its Big Five study of 3,009 US and UK households covers YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp. It reports feature use for each single year of age from 10 to 12, with about 204 to 210 young people at each age.¹⁰ Snapchat direct messages, for one, are used by 13.2% at age 10, 18.6% at 11 and 25.7% at 12. The study also reports by age band, including 1 to 5, 6 to 9, 10 to 12 and 13 to 15.

What changes at each age, platform by platform, is on our page about when young people start using social media features.

Footnotes

1. "The Big Five", a Dubit Trends study of 3,009 households in the US and UK, published February 2026, on how teens use YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp. ↩

2. Same study. Daily WhatsApp use in the UK and in the US, among 10 to 12 year olds and among 13 to 15 year olds. ↩ ↩²

3. Same study. Sharing content on public platforms against sharing by private message, in the US and in the UK. The TikTok-only and WhatsApp-only figures are shares of the young people who share digitally: 452 in the US and 209 in the UK. ↩ ↩²

4. Same study. Daily Snapchat use in the US and in the UK, among 10 to 12 year olds and among 13 to 15 year olds. ↩

5. Same study. Use of Snapchat for messaging among UK and US teens, and of WhatsApp for messaging among UK teens. ↩

6. Same study. Daily Instagram use by boys and by girls, in the UK and in the US. ↩

7. Same study. Smartphone access among teen users of each platform; TV use of YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat among 13 to 15 year olds. ↩

8. Same study. Devices used to access YouTube, among all 802 YouTube users in the study; smartphone access among users of Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok. ↩

9. Same study. Users of each platform aged 10 to 15 who access it on two or more devices, and the average number of devices. ↩

10. Same study. Feature use at ages 10, 11 and 12, with about 204 to 210 young people at each age. ↩