Behind the Numbers: Gen Z Teens' Relationship with GenAI, Social Media, and Video Games

Audio by Marcus Johnson, Paola Flores-Marquez, and Jennifer Pearson | Mar 10, 2025

TRANSCRIPT

Marcus:

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Hey gang, it's March. It's Monday, and it's also March, the 10th. Jenny, Paola, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an E-Marketer video podcast. Don't know why I'm shouting. I'm excited for no reason. I'm Marcus. Today we'll be discussing the youngest of the Gen Z people. And for that conversation, I'm joined by two folks. We start by introducing our VP of everything research, recording from New York, Ms. Jennifer Pearson.

Jennifer Pearson:

Happy to be here.

Marcus:

Hello there. And we also have with us our demographics analyst, living in that same metropolis, it's Paola Flores-Marquez.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me back.

Marcus:

Hello. Of course. Today's fact. Where is Earth's water? This sounds like more of an existential question than it is. Why is Earth water? How? No, no, no. Where is it? 70% of the world is water, which people probably know. Of the water part, 97% of the global water supply is in the oceans. You may not be surprised to learn, but that's a lot of it. It doesn't leave very much left for fresh water. So that leaves 3% of the water on the world is fresh water. Of that fresh water, 69% of it is in glaciers and ice caps, which is amazing. I didn't realize how it was. I thought most of it you'd be able to see. Well, you can still see it. You get it. 30%-

Paola Flores-Marquez:

You see it more and more every day.

Marcus:

Exactly. Unfortunately, that number is going in the wrong direction. Yes. It can go in the opposite direction though, just not right now, because we're ruining the planet. But it has happened, where glaciers are, obviously, formed over millennia or over short periods of time. Right now, they're going in the opposite direction because of humans.

So 69% of fresh water is in glaciers and ice caps. 30% of it is in the ground. You can't see that. That leaves just 1% of fresh water that can be found in lakes, which is staggering, because there are a lot of them. But that's basically none of the fresh water that you can see.

Jennifer Pearson:

A fun fact, 90% of the world's ice is found in Antarctica.

Marcus:

Wow.

Jennifer Pearson:

And I know this only last night from working on a project with my son, who is studying Antarctica. I just thought it was so somewhat related to what your trivia question was.

Marcus:

That is very related. The real question is, what share of homework is actually done by parents?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

And older cousins, I have to throw in.

Marcus:

Oh. Yeah, yeah, all the grades, which is a referendum on my bad grades, on my mother, and my... My dad didn't really help. But that means if you get a bad grade, the parent takes it quite personal, because they're like, that was pretty much all me. So did I deserve a C?

Anyway, today's real topic, I have no idea, how teenagers media use is changing. All right, folks, we're talking about teens today. Who are they? What do we mean by teenagers, Jenny? Because it depends on who you ask, there are different definitions. What's ours?

Jennifer Pearson:

Sure. E-marketer defines teens as ages 12 to 17. So it does include 12-year olds. That's our formal definition. Some research firms use 13 to 17, a true teen age group. Teens are about 30% of Gen Z. They are all Gen Z, as we define Gen Z right now. So all of them are squarely in the Generation Z. They make up about 30% of that generation, and they make up about 6% of the total population of the US.

Marcus:

About 6% of the total population. Okay, okay. I mean, 18 is technically teen. 19 is technically teen. Is it because it's just a different life stage, in terms of going to college?

Jennifer Pearson:

Correct. They're classified as adults. As they turn 18 in the United States, you're you're classified as an adult. So then we're talking adult Gen Z.

Marcus:

Okay. Brain doesn't stop developing until you're 25 years old. Just learned that the other day. So it's shocking to say that 18 is an adult. But okay, so we're talking about 12 to 17, most of the time. Unless there's a study that has different age range, that's what we're talking about today. And as Jenny pointed out, the younger Gen Z folks.

Let's talk, first of all, Paola, about Gen AI. We've been talking about it a lot on the show. It's unavoidable. What's young people's relationship with this new technology?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

So teens today are increasingly comfortable using Gen AI for regular tasks, like their homework. They use it to entertain themselves. Some of them have used it as a self-soothing mechanism, like typing in their problems and getting feedback. So right now, according to Common Sense Media, about seven out of 10 teens use at least one type of Gen AI. And I think the most common kinds are the search engine summaries, which are very, like we all use those because they've already been implemented into things like Google. But there is a huge uptick in teens using generative text, and so chat bots, at a higher rate than the rest of the population.

Marcus:

The search engines thing is interesting, because they're using it, but they're using it a lot. 20% of them, I think it was the number I saw from your recent report on this, 20% using it daily. So it's a different type of usage than other folks, who may be technically have used it before once, or used it once per month, or used it once per week. This is very regular usage.

You mentioned that they're using it for homework as well, as well as for a lot of other reasons. That Common Sense Media survey, it kind of felt like the reasons could be broken down to three tiers. So the first tier was homework, 53% of teens saying they use it for homework help Gen AI. That's kind of a tier all by itself. And then tier two, with about 30 to 40% of teens saying this is why they use Gen AI, included using because they're bored, using it for translation, brainstorming, writing a document or email, creating an image or video, or summarizing something, as kind of tier two reasons.

And then tier three reasons, close to 20% of teens using it for this, activities included creating content as a joke, personal advice, which I think you mentioned, and using it to plan an activity. So a lot of different reasons, but quite a big variation in how many folks are using it for those different activities.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, I was thinking about it as I was writing it, and I was struck by how similar it is to the way that millennials had unfettered access to the internet as teens. And there's a huge gap between parents who think their kids are using Gen AI and the teens that are using it.

Marcus:

Yes.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

And so similarly, millennials, their parents had no idea what they were doing, and they were using it to code MySpace pages, and create memes, and post pictures of cats, and videos. And so I think when we approach teen Gen AI usage, to think about it with that mind frame, right? They're still teenagers. They're using it to just post jokes and make their lives easier.

Jennifer Pearson:

Right. And so much more than even last year. Pew Research did a study in 2023. How many teens were using ChatGPT specifically for homework, it was 13%. Then they did the study again in the fall 2024, 26%. So that's doubled in a year, which makes sense. It's so pervasive now, AI, and especially ChatGPT. So this was specifically for their schoolwork. And I think as it becomes more second nature working on school, or as Pao was mentioning, in social or just recreation, then that number will just increase year-on-year.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, I think we can also see it taking the trajectory of Wikipedia, where you were told, "Don't ever touch Wikipedia. It's untrustworthy," and all this. And eventually, it gets folded into the process of how you start a project. And it's like, in school, they'll tell you, "Go to Wikipedia for an overview, and then go to the sources and double check it." So I think we can expect to see that eventually as well with Gen AI.

Marcus:

It's interesting though, because it feels as though kids aren't having this talk, the Gen AI talk, if you will, with their teachers. Kartik Hosaniga, a professor at the Wharton School of UPenn, was saying that many schools have adopted a Gen AI abstinence policy in the classroom, but that just means students aren't learning skills they will need in the future. He was saying that whilst there are pros and cons to using Gen AI in the classroom, we can't just pretend it doesn't exist. And he goes on to say that he lets his classroom students and his own kids play with Gen AI to help them refine their thought processes, providing them with rules about acceptable and inappropriate uses.

But it does seem as though most kids, a lot of kids, are using it. Even people at work, people that are using it at work and not telling their employer. Kids are using it and not telling their teachers. And it does feel like, at some point, you've got to get your arms around this and say, "Look, this is a thing. It's better if we talk about how to use it properly, as opposed to pretending it doesn't exist and ignoring it."

This also exists with-

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah.

Marcus:

Sorry. Please?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Oh no, I was going to say I think that's a good rule of thumb, to any technology, but especially the internet. The more that we know about it, and the more we talk about how to use it responsibly, the better our relationship with it is going to be.

Marcus:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because you mentioned, a lot of parents don't even know that their kids are using it. It was 37% of parents whose teen reported using at least one AI tool were aware of such use. So most parents didn't know their kids were using Gen AI. And half of parents say they've not talked to their teens about Gen AI use. So kids not having these conversations with teachers, with parents about how to use it and how to use it responsibly.

What's interesting though, is despite the high usage of Gen AI, it's not trusted much at all. And so this, you were making the comp with millennials, I think, Pao, and this seems like a similar type of comp with folks in social media. People use it a lot, but don't trust it at all. And it seems like a lot of young people are using Gen AI a lot, but don't trust it at all. Pao, you were saying that chat bot's the second most frequently used Gen AI interface among teens, but only 36% of them trust the responses. According to the News Literacy Project, half don't trust chat bots at all.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, I really love that study, and I wish we could have featured it more. So if anybody is interested in reading it, you should. But it pretty much looked at the difference in tech usage between kids who had received media literacy classes and kids who hadn't. And so there were big gaps in the levels of interpretation on a lot of topics. But I was surprised, because for Gen AI, there was actually a smaller gap than it was for other technologies. So it kind of indicated that there's some sort of an instinctive quality of kids having been online for so long and having already been exposed to it, where they're able to suss out the quality of the information and distinguish between generated images and generated videos.

And there's still a gap. I want to make it clear, there's still a portion of them that do trust it at face value. But they are skeptical, and I think that bodes well for us, I think, in a time where we need good news.

Marcus:

Yeah.

Jennifer Pearson:

Yeah. To your point, Pao, we also have data from Common Sense, a separate study, where teens were asked to identify, or if they've seen images or misleading videos, and a majority were able to identify. And many had seen, of course, they'd seen misleading videos or been misled by fake content online. 35% said they had. So it is out and about.

Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah, there's two things here. There's how to use the technology and then how to interpret the results of that technology. Then Megan Morrone of Axios was saying that the Gen AI is creating a brand new knowledge gap between teens and adults. And I think part of that knowledge gap is usage, and part of that knowledge gap is deciphering what's real and what's not. We talked about a couple of comps here with Gen AI and usage of it, how much it's used versus how much it's not trusted, and compared that into social media, how much that's used and how much that is not trusted. Paola, what did you learn about where teens are spending their social media time?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

So teens are still very much on social media, and the level of usage varies based on how well into their teens they are. But one of the things I wanted to start out by pointing out is that for the third year in a row, our forecast is seeing a decrease in usage for TikTok and Snap, which is fascinating. But that being said, they are still spending more time on TikTok, like twice the amount of time on TikTok than they are on Snap and Instagram. So TikTok still reigns supreme for the time being.

Marcus:

I want to hammer that point home, because that's shocking. What Paola's saying there is that teens, their overall spending less time, less and less time with their favorite social platforms. So TikTok, as you mentioned, since 2022, the time spent on TikTok by teens has been going down, from an hour and 30 to an hour and 15. Same with Snapchat. Teens will spend five fewer minutes on Snapchat in 2026 than they did in 2022. It's about 30 minutes.

Instagram's the outlier here, right? I think that's going up a little bit for teens, about five minutes from 2022 to 2026. But this is, I mean, it's really quite shocking to see numbers go down for social media for any group, but particularly for this group. Paola, I really like the way that you were talking about a starter kit of sorts of social media platforms for kids.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah. I mean, you turn into a teenager, you're really excited about it, and you're like, all right, what do I need to make my mark as a teenager? I need to get on the basics of the platforms, which is, I think Instagram has surpassed Facebook as a necessity, although some teens do still use Facebook. But Instagram is kind of like a calling card now. And it feels safer to give out your Insta or your Snap than it is to give out your phone number. And if you don't like the person and you don't want to hang out with them or you don't want to talk to them, you just delete them.

Marcus:

Oh, goodness.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah. Yeah, you get booted out.

Marcus:

The number of people that have asked me for my Instagram, and when I tell them I don't have it, they look at me like I just disappeared.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, get what the times, Marcus.

Marcus:

They're like, "Well, what do I? So how do you-"

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, how do I reach you?

Marcus:

"How do I contact you?" I'm like, phone number? No?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

What do you mean, that's too personal. No.

Marcus:

Page me? [inaudible 00:16:01]. We talked about Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat. The one that gets forgotten, and the one that's the biggest, it seems, for everyone. And when we are talking about the littlest of people, or the kids, the same was true, YouTube. Maybe because it's not a social network, per se, it's social media. Paola, tell us about how important YouTube is to this group.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, YouTube is a juggernaut. And when I think about where these kids are no longer... When they're no longer spending their time on social, I do think there's a bit of social fatigue, but I think they're just redistributing their time. And I would suspect that YouTube is the main culprit, and where they're shifting a lot of their time spent to.

As we saw in the Gen Alpha report, YouTube is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, platform that they use. And actually, I should amend that, it is the biggest platform that children use. And what we're seeing, the Gen Alpha report focused on kids now, but the teens that we're looking at were children who grew up with YouTube, so they're carrying those habits into adulthood. And it remains the leading platform that they use and where they spend the majority of their time. And we'll do a report on YouTube demographics later in the year, and sort of break that down more, but we cannot overstate the importance of YouTube in their digital lives.

Jennifer Pearson:

When I think about 2020, five years ago, these teens were between seven and 12. And those are just those core years of, everything moved to connect to TV and video. And YouTube was really firmly cemented as a habit. It's an hour and 18 minutes daily teens are spending, according to our forecast. That is a staggering amount of time each day.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

It is the platform with the widest reach when it comes to teens.

Marcus:

Okay, okay.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, so it's the platform that is used across the most by all teens. Whereas, it's more diversified on social platforms.

Marcus:

And it's a big part of that just the fact that the YouTube, they're in this unique position where they have an on-ramp in YouTube Kids? So I just looked it up, it is been out for about nearly 10 years now. But that introduces children to the brand at a young age.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, I think so. And it's a level of comfort too, and in being able to navigate it. And the content, I think, also, because there's more of direct interaction between the viewers and the creators, the content's able to grow and shift with the kids, in a way that I think traditional media sometimes is really disconnected.

Marcus:

Okay. And you were saying that a lot of young people are using YouTube for music, like a shocking amount.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, music is huge. One, you can find really niche artists. Although, the majority of music discovery still happens on Spotify. But yeah, music is a huge one. You just have it in the background, or you're watching music videos with your friends, which is a big social activity. It's one of the biggest ways to stay connected to artists that you're following.

Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah. I think you said close to four and five kids using, teens using YouTube for music playing. I think it was Precise TV and Giraffe Insights data. So they're using Gen AI a fair amount, they're on social media. Young people traditionally have liked to play video games, since video games were invented, it's another thing that they do with their time. But how has that engagement with digital gaming changed, Paola? And what is it like today?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, again, we saw this in the Gen Alpha Report, and I think teens really cement this, is that video gaming is a social activity for teens today. And it always has been, but it used to be that you'd have to go to someone's house and plug in the device and make sure you had enough controllers. And now, kids have greater access to technology, because they can either play on their phones, or they inherit or share consoles with their parents or siblings, or they're gifted the latest console themselves, or they save up for it.

But it's so much easier to just log on and play with your friends, and make the same jokes that you would if you were hanging out in front of a 7Eleven, or loitering at the movie theater. But you're doing it from the comfort of your own home and you're having a collaborative activity. It seems more efficient to a generation that has most of their day-to-day activities already occurring in a digital space.

Marcus:

Yeah.

Jennifer Pearson:

Yeah. It's one of the leading ways teens consume content. We have that Precise TV and Giraffe Insights that you mentioned, Marcus. But the leading way to consume content, digital content, is YouTube. But then video games, and then games on a phone or a tablet, are just behind YouTube. So such a popular activity.

Marcus:

Paola, I want to come back to the point you were saying about helping them develop their relationship with their friends. There is some research from Pew Research Center that asked how teens playing video games has affected aspects of their lives. 56% problem solving, 47% friendships. Now, they did admit that their sleep has suffered considerably, as has their school performance. But on the plus side, they're making new friends. So Paola, let's end with this. What is one of the biggest takeaways about teens for you from your research?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

One of the things that stood out to me is that there's a huge, huge change in mindset within the teen years, from entering your teens, you still have a lot of childlike habits, carrying over a lot of those tendencies. But it's a huge, huge shift from that to exiting your teens and going into adulthood, and carrying all these responsibilities. So when thinking about how to reach teens, I would really suggest considering the different life stages that occur even within those couple of years, in order to hone in on who it is that you're speaking to.

Marcus:

Yeah, yeah. And you had some research that showed that there's a pretty big difference in social media adoption, based on if you're a very young teenager, versus a slightly older teenager, the usage can shift quite quickly.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah. Yeah, social media usage usually ramps up around age 15, which makes sense, right? You're getting more independence, you're going out more, you're probably doing more social activities, so you're trying to stay connected to people more.

Marcus:

Yeah. Yeah. I think Instagram had the biggest spike of adoption from young teen to older teen. At what point does a teenager become just a nightmare individual? 15 is my guess. 14?

Paola Flores-Marquez:

I mean, if you ask my mom, it's always.

Marcus:

The whole time.

Jennifer Pearson:

15 to 17, according to Pew Research.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Marcus:

[inaudible 00:22:48] ages. Well, the full report is called US Teen Digital Habits 2025. Pro+ subscribers can head to emarketer.com, link is in the show notes, of course. It just came out last Friday. So hot off the press. That's all we've got time for today's episode. Thank you so much to my guests, as always. Thank you to, Paola.

Paola Flores-Marquez:

Thank you so much, Marcus.

Marcus:

Yes, indeed. Thank you to Jenny.

Jennifer Pearson:

Thanks for having me.

Marcus:

Absolutely. Thank you to the whole editing crew, Victoria, John, Lance, and Danny Stewart, who runs the team. And Sophie, who does our social media. Thanks to everyone for listening in to Behind the Numbers, an eMarketer video podcast. Tomorrow, we have our monthly banking and payment show episode with host Rob Rubin, where he'll be speaking about whether AI is ready to be our financial advisor.