Social Media Monitor Report

Instagram is having a real comeback with Gen Z this year, and teens are the ones driving it. Young people are also using social media differently than they used to. They’re posting less to their own feeds and spending more of their time in DMs and on second accounts only their close friends can see. YPulse’s 2026 Social Media Monitor Behavioral Report gets into which platforms they’re on most now, what they search for, and how they really feel about age limits and AI content in their feeds.

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• Which platforms 13-39-year-olds use and use daily, how Instagram’s teen growth compares to Snapchat, and what they actually do on social in a given week, from DMs and reposts to posting on their stories
• How many have been fooled by false or AI-generated content, whether they fact-check before they share, and how they feel about AI warning labels and laws limiting kids’ social media use
• How POC, LGBTQ+, and college students use social media differently, from buying what they see in their feeds to running private accounts and looking back on growing up online