5 Facts About How Americans Use Facebook, Two Decades After its Launch

By Katherine Schaeffer for Pew Research Center

Social media giant Facebook launched 20 years ago this week. Over the last two decades, the site has transformed the way people connect online, and its reach has grown to 3 billion monthly users worldwide. In recent years, lawmakers and the public in the United States and abroad have grown more critical of Facebook and its parent company, Meta.

Here are five key facts about Americans and Facebook, based on Pew Research Center surveys.

1. Around seven-in-ten U.S. adults (68%) say they ever use Facebook, a share that has remained relatively flat since 2016, according to a survey conducted between May and September 2023.

With the exception of YouTube – used by 83% of adults – no other social media platform comes close to Facebook in usage. Roughly half of adults (47%) report using Instagram, while around a third use Pinterest (35%) and TikTok (33%). About three-in-ten each say they use LinkedIn (30%), WhatsApp (29%) and Snapchat (27%). Smaller shares use X (formerly called Twitter), Reddit and BeReal. Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

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