Poll: Black teens most active on social media applications
Teenagers and their technology are inseparable, but a new poll shows black teens are the most likely to have access to smartphones — which could explain why they’re the biggest and most frequent users of mobilefriendly social media apps Snapchat and Instagram.
A survey released Thursday by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research explored teens’ social media use and its relationship to race and class. The poll found that nearly 9 in 10 black teenagers use Snapchat, compared with just over 7 in 10 whites. And 4 in 10 black teens report using Snapchat almost constantly, compared with about 2 in 10 white teens.
A third of black teens say they use Instagram almost constantly, compared with about 1 in 5 white teens who responded similarly.
“They’re first-movers, in many ways,” said Amanda Lenhart, the lead researcher on the poll, whose work has focused on teenagers and social media use. “It speaks to the level of embeddedness of the technology in black youths’ lives and their willingness to move into new platforms more quickly than their counterparts.”
Overall, teens with access to a smartphone are more likely to use Instagram than those without one — 80 percent compared with 37 percent. The same is true for Snapchat, 79 percent compared with 40 percent. Just 6 percent of the 13- to 17-year-olds in the study said they don’t use any of the common social media platforms.
Among all teens, the poll shows three-quarters use Instagram and Snapchat, more than the twothirds who say they use Facebook.
And while texting is still the way 9 in 10 teens send short messages, 4 in 10 also use a messaging app, such as Kik, WhatsApp, Skype or Facebook Messenger. Thirty-four percent of black teens surveyed responded that they use three or more messaging apps, compared with 20 percent of white teens.
More than 9 in 10 black teens — 95 percent — have access to a smartphone, compared with 89 percent of whites and 86 percent of Hispanics. THE GREAT WALL