Youth digital research firm YPULSE’s “most clicked article of 2015” didn’t hold a lot of surprises, but it might be useful to note teens’ and millennials’ top picks here at the turn of the year. Facebook owns three of the Top 10 apps: Instagram (No. 1), the Facebook app (2nd) and Whatsapp, which appears to tie with YouTube and the Weather app for 7th place, and Google two of them (its search app and YouTube). I say “appears” because I’m basing this on the graphical word cloud in the Ypulse’s article for the public (like most market research firms, it charges fees for its reports, blogging only the highlights). Snapchat and the Google app were tied for 3rd. Twitter‘s No. 4, with Yahoo’s Tumblr next and Spotify the music app apparently close behind it.
Listen to a lively audio snippet (embedded in this New York Times piece of a focus group with 8th graders showing how they make social media services their own (e.g., how these teens make Instagram more like Snapchat by making their own IG photos disappear!).
The YPULSE Top 10 is based on US 13-to-33-year-olds’ open-ended responses to the researchers’ query about their favorite app. “It’s important to keep in mind that the responses include those that are top of mind, those that are used most often, and those that are actually viewed in a positive light.” A whopping 89% of all respondents said they own a smartphone.” “Millennials,” also referred to as “Generation Y,” doesn’t has an exact definition, but YPULSE lines up with Wikipedia, which says, “Most researchers and commentators use birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s” (and The Atlantic ran a fun “investigative” piece on the term a couple of years ago).
Related links
- As for parental controls on phones, the New York Times looked at iPhones vs. Android phones right before Christmas.
- Here’s the latest Pew research on adults’ social media use, including on smartphones.
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