There is a prevailing notion that young people don’t use Facebook, with Gen Z shifting their focus towards other social media platforms. Some even argue that advertising on Facebook for this demographic is a futile endeavor.

While there’s truth to this, the narrative is not entirely accurate.

To gain a better understanding, I analyzed the data to see whether Gen Z remains active on Facebook or not.

If you prefer to read along rather than watch the video, we’ve summarized the highlights of this analysis in the full post below.

What is Gen Z’s Favorite Social Media Platform?

Looking at data from Spring 2021–Spring 2023, it’s evident that TikTok emerges as the favored social media platform among US teens, closely followed by Snapchat and Instagram. During this period, a substantial 38% of surveyed teens identified TikTok as their preferred platform, while only 2–3% expressed the same sentiment for Facebook.

However, just because Facebook is not a favorite among teens does not mean they aren’t using it at all, nor does it mean that you can’t reach Gen Z on Facebook when they are using it.

How Much Does Gen Z Use Facebook?

When queried about their Facebook usage patterns, approximately 54% of US teens reported using the platform on a monthly basis. Comparatively, 66% indicated monthly usage of Snapchat, indicating that Facebook is not far behind. Notably, more users reported monthly engagement with Facebook than with other supposedly trending platforms like Discord, Reddit, and Twitch.

We switch to GWI data to evaluate how frequently Gen Z uses Facebook. In terms of daily usage, 33% of Gen Z respondents confirmed that they log into Facebook at least once a day. While it’s true that Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are more frequent users, one-third of Gen Z still use Facebook are part of their daily digital routine.

When we switch to how often each generation uses Facebook monthly, the numbers change. Keep in mind, this only includes those who report using Facebook monthly, but not less nor more frequently. 

In that case, 18% of Gen Z report using Facebook monthly, which is significantly higher than Millennials (10%), Gen X (7%) or Baby Boomers (6%). In fact, Gen Z indexes at a 176 for monthly Facebook usage, whereas the average Internet user indexes at 100. 

By comparison, about 50% of Gen Z reports daily usage of TikTok. While this percentage is higher, the gap isn’t as wide as one might expect.

How Much Does Each Generation Use Social Networks?

When we turn back to eMarketer data, Millennials lead the pack as the largest user group on social media, totaling 69.7 million users. Gen Z closely follows with 65.8 million users, while Gen X and Baby Boomers trail with 50.1 million and 34.4 million users, respectively.

The youngest members of Gen Z are still only 11 years old, so they are still aging into social media usage a bit. 

Interestingly, Facebook takes the top spot in terms of user count across all generations except Gen Z. For this demographic, Snapchat and TikTok claim the first and second positions, but Facebook is still the 4th most popular social network for Gen Z, ahead of many other popular sites such as Reddit.

Let’s turn back to GWI data to finish this analysis and look only at frequent social network users. In this case, we analyze the percentage of all US Internet users who use each social network either weekly, daily or more than once a day.

On average, 65% of individuals across all age groups utilize Facebook frequently, including 42% of Gen Z Internet users, making it the predominant social network in the US.

So clearly Facebook is not number one for Gen Z, and likely won’t be ever again, but omitting the platform entirely from marketing campaigns may not make sense. This is particularly true if you’re planning to run a paid program on Meta anyway. Having those promoted posts reach Gen Z when they are on Facebook could be quite efficient. 

Key Takeaways: Does Gen Z Use Facebook?

It’s clear that Facebook remains a relevant platform for all generations, although Gen Z is currently the smallest user base on this platform.

If your brand is specifically targeting Gen Z with social media marketing campaigns, it’s prudent not to rely solely on Facebook, but rather to incorporate it as part of a comprehensive strategy. The Gen Z audience is present on the platform, albeit not as frequently as their older counterparts.