Extremely online: American teens' social media habits

12/12/23 7:00PM

Screen teens

‍A new survey has found that maybe the older generations were right after all: teenagers these days really do spend all of their time on their phones. Nearly half (47%) of teen pollees aged 13-17 years old responded that they were online “almost constantly”. While that share is about the same as last year, it’s almost double the figure recorded for 2014-15 — with a whopping 95% of teens also now reporting having access to a smartphone.

And for anyone wondering exactly how the younger netizens are whiling away their online hours, the majority of teens use several social media apps and sites every single day, including 71% for YouTube, 58% for TikTok, and 51% for Snapchat.

‍Liked and subscribed

‍While YouTube remained the firm favorite among teenagers, with 93% using the video site altogether, a small contraction in daily usage from last year was observed across most social media platforms included in the poll — perhaps the result of the screen time limit feature, introduced on iPhones in 2022.

There was one major exception to the downward trend, however: TikTok. The share of teens who identified as “almost constant” users of the Bytedance-owned app increased to 17%, and millennial mainstay Facebook even saw a modest rise among constant users as well. Zuckerberg’s platform still isn’t exactly cool amongst the teenage demographic, however, with total teen FB users plummeting from 71% in 2014-15 to just 33% today.

Millie Giles13h

Tamagotchis are making a comeback, 3 decades after first becoming a global toy craze

If you were a ’90s kid, you might remember the craze around little egg-shaped toys with an 8-bit digital screen, displaying an ambiguous pet-thing that demanded food and attention.

Now, on the brand’s 30th anniversary, the Tamagotchi — the Japanese pocket-sized virtual pet that launched a thousand cute and needy tech companions, from Nintendogs to fluffy AI robots — is making a minor comeback.

Tamagotchi Google Search Trends — Sherwood News

Looking at Google Trends data, searches for “tamagotchi” spiked in December in the US, up around 80% from just six months prior, with the most search volume in almost two decades.

While the toys are popular Christmas gifts, with interest volumes often seen ticking up in December each year, the sudden interest might also have something to do with the birthday celebrations that creator and manufacturer Bandai Namco are putting on, including a Tokyo exhibition that opened on Wednesday.

Game, set, hatch

More broadly, modern consumers appear to have a growing obsession with collectibles (see: Labubu mania), as well as a taste for nostalgia (see: the iPod revival, among many other trends).

But, having finally hit 100 million sales in September last year, the brand itself is probably just glad to exist, giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the profound grief of an unexpected Tamagotchi death.

Millie Giles

PANDORA’S BOX OFFICE

1/5/26

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” surpasses $1 billion globally after 18 days

James Cameron is now the first director in history to have four consecutive movies gross over a billion dollars.

$5.6B

Max Knoblauch12/23/25

Disney could be well on its way to its third billion-dollar film of the year following a $345 million opening weekend for “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” The film’s opening gross puts the “Avatar” franchise’s total box office earnings at $5.6 billion — and counting.

The latest film, the second “Avatar” entry under Disney’s tent, earned about 75% of its total box office gross internationally — in line with previous movies in the (as of now) trilogy. Domestically, this one earned $88 million, falling short of expectations.

“Fire and Ash” was the widest Imax release ever, debuting on 1,703 screens globally and earning $43.6 million through the format. The $345 million “Fire and Ash” opening weekend was the second-highest of 2025, behind Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which recently passed the $1 billion mark, globally.

Year to date, Disney has earned $5.8 billion globally at the box office.