Snapchat Outranks Instagram As Fastest-Growing Social Network For American Millennials: Harvard IOP Poll

Snapchat isn’t too old for the young quite yet. The 4-year-old mobile app is the fastest-growing social network among millennials, according to a survey from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.

About 36 percent of Americans ages 18-29 have a Snapchat account, the survey found. That’s up by 8 percent compared with a year ago. Facebook is still ranked as the most widespread social network; about 81 percent in the survey have an account. Instagram is at 46 percent, Twitter 38 percent, Pinterest 34 percent and Tumblr 14 percent.

But unlike Snapchat, Facebook and Tumblr bumped up by only 1 percent. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing app Instagram closely followed Snapchat with a 7 percent increase. Microblogging site Twitter, which has been scrutinized by Wall Street for stagnant user growth, did not change from the fall of 2014.

The Harvard poll, released Thursday, surveyed 2,011 Americans ages 18-29 from Oct. 30 to Nov. 9 this year and was conducted by undergraduates at the university.

Peter Hamby, Snapchat’s head of news who served as a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center in the spring of 2013 while he worked at CNN, shared the news on Twitter:

Snapchat does not disclose how many accounts are on the network, but analysts estimate there are at least 200 million monthly active users. Snapchat has reported more than 100 million daily actives.

The poll also compared the social networks across political affiliations, gender and race. Snapchat users were fairly evenly divided along party lines, looking at Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Snapchat did skew white and female, however. About 40 percent of white Americans were on Snapchat compared to 25 percent of black and 34 percent of Hispanics. No other social network had that much of a disparity.

About 42 percent of women surveyed had a Snapchat account and 31 percent of males did. All other networks also skewed female. The most striking difference was with Pinterest, where 55 percent of the females surveyed had an account vs. only 12 percent of males.

The Harvard IOP poll did not compare based on wealth. But a Pew Research study from earlier this year that surveyed 1,060 Americans ages 13-17 found that Snapchat is more likely to be cited as the most popular social network among wealthier teens.