Communication is flourishing online. Or at least that’s the impression we got after reading Pew Research Center’s 2015 Mobile Messaging and Social Media report. The report tracks the social media and mobile messaging usage of adults living in the US. Not only is every major social platform seeing continued growth, but also the amount of people who check into social daily is expanding. It’s becoming a truly ingrained part of our daily lives. Check out some of the key results below!

1. Pinterest and Instagram’s audience has doubled
First, looking at audience growth, Pinterest and Instagram have seen the biggest percentage increases since 2012. Today, 31% use Pinterest, which is up 16 points from it’s 15% in 2012. Similarly, Instagram saw a 15-point increase: from 13% to 28%.

2. Facebook remains the most popular, but growth has plateaued
As you can also see in the chart above, Facebook still reigns supreme as the most popular social media platform. However, its growth has slowed and has only grown 5 percentage points since 2012. This is also true in terms of daily user engagement, as you’ll see later on.

3. Messaging apps aren’t just for millennials, but auto-delete apps might be
While the most popular adult demographic for mobile messaging apps seems to be younger adults, those aged 30+ are still active users. Today, 49% of adults aged 18-29 use mobile apps, and 37% of 30-49 and 24% of adults older than 50 use these apps.

The same can’t really be said for auto-delete apps like Snapchat. 41% of 18-29 year-olds use those apps, but only 11% of 30-49 and 4% of 50+ adults do.

4. Instagram and Pinterest see biggest growth in daily engagement
Lastly, social media is increasingly becoming part of everyone’s daily routine – moving from a nice-to-have communication tool to an essential one. In the last year, Instagram has seen their daily users grow from 49% to 59%, and 35% are now visiting several times a day. Pinterest has seen similar growth – going from 17% in September 2014 to 27% as of April 2015. LinkedIn also increased from 13% to 22% over the same time period. The two without much growth are Twitter and Facebook. Facebook stayed consistent at 70% while Twitter saw a small bump moving them from 36% daily users to 38%.

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