Snapchat has published a new report which looks at the digital connection behaviors of Australians, and how teens are using social and messaging apps versus adults.
The report, conducted by YouGov for Snap, incorporates responses from over 1,000 adults, and 500 teens, providing an indicative overview of digital engagement behaviors.
The key finding? More and more teens and adults are shifting their interactions to private messaging apps, a trend that’s more prominent among teens.
The data shows that 4-in-5 Australian teens, and 3-in-4 Australian adults, report feeling happy when direct messaging with family and close friends.
Which also expands to general social media use.
As per Snap:
“63% of adults, and 86% teens, also report feeling happy when using messaging apps for communication, significantly more than say the same about using social media platforms.”
That’s largely reflective of the broader trend of social media usage away from public posting on profiles, and towards private DMs and DM groups. When messaging in smaller groups, users avoid the scrutiny of posting to everyone, which leads to a more positive user experience.
The research also highlights the divide in platform usage between adults and teens, with Snapchat and TikTok seeing the most daily use for younger users, as opposed to Facebook and IG for adults.
And the divide between messaging app usage is even more significant:
Which is not really new information, as such, given the enduring popularity of Snapchat among teens, but it is interesting to note just how different the usage behaviors are between older and younger groups.
Overall, the data indicates that social media apps are becoming less social over time, with messaging platforms really being the social apps of the moment. That also coincides with social apps morphing into entertainment platforms, where users can discover content that they then share into DM groups.
But the real summary here is that messaging groups are a better user experience than social media posting. Teens find that on Snapchat, while adults are also migrating away from social posting to private chats.
You can read the full Snapchat Australian usage trends report here.
