Kids and teens are now spending more time watching videos on TikTok than on YouTube. In fact, that’s been the case since June 2020 — the month when TikTok began to outrank YouTube in terms of the average minutes per day people ages 4 through 18 spent accessing these two competitive video platforms. That month, TikTok overtook YouTube for the first time, as this younger demographic began averaging 82 minutes per day on TikTok versus an average of 75 minutes per day on YouTube.
In the years since, TikTok has continued to dominate with younger users. By the end of 2021, kids and teens were watching an average of 91 minutes of TikTok per day compared with just 56 minutes per day spent watching YouTube, on a global basis. This new data is based on kids’ and teens’ use of TikTok and YouTube across platforms, which was compiled by parental control software maker Qustodio using an analysis of 400,000 families who have accounts with its service for parental monitoring. The data represents their real-world usage of apps and websites, not an estimate.
And to be clear, these figures are averages. That means kids aren’t necessarily sitting down to watch an hour and a half of TikTok and an hour of YouTube every day. Instead, the data shows how viewing trends have changed over time, where some days kids will watch more online video than others and will switch between their favourite apps.
However, the broader picture this data paints is one where the world’s largest video platform may be losing its grip on the next generation of web users — specifically, Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Gen Z is typically thought to include people born between the mid- to late-1990s and the 2010s. Meanwhile, Gen Alpha — a generation whose childhood was put on pause by Covid, then driven online — includes those born after the early to mid-2010s.
This past year, the averages grew even further apart. In 2021, this younger demographic spent an average of 91 minutes per day on TikTok versus just 56 minutes on YouTube. It is worth noting that these figures include both website and app usage YouTube, no doubt, is well aware of this shift in consumer behaviour as are all other social app makers, including Meta and Snap. That’s why YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat have all now copied TikTok’s short-form vertical video feed with their own products.
In YouTube’s case, that’s YouTube Shorts, a short video platform the company believes will prove to be a discovery engine that will drive users to its long-form product. The company recently touted that YouTube Shorts had topped 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users and suggested that channels producing videos of different lengths were seeing gains in watch time. It didn’t, however, share any specific figures on that front.
So, what does this mean for any digital marketers or advertisers? Well, the new data just goes to reaffirm what we have already known for a while now, if you want to market to Gen Z, and teens in particular, you need to get your business, product, and brand on to Tik Tok as soon as you can. As it stands today, Tik Tok’s dominance over the other media sharing platforms looks to only be growing in size and will be a crucial tool in reaching out to a younger audience. These teens are going to be the future spenders of our economy that will be the target market of businesses as they expand. If you or someone you know runs a business that will need to market to anyone in their early 20s, then you need to get your products, services, and brands are exposed to them on the platforms that they choose to spend time on.
