Every single social media platform you're on has ads, and some of them are even tailored based on your demographics, interests, behavior, and other factors. As it turns out, companies are earning hundreds of millions for them, and a lot of the included audiences are underaged.
Collectively Earning $11 Billion
It's already pretty normal for social media apps to earn revenue from ads, but it turns out that a huge percentage of those audiences are users under the age of 18. For the first time, researchers tried to determine how much ad sales are earned through the age bracket, and it's a lot.
The statistics used for the study are pulled from numbers back in 2022, and it shows that platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) have collectively earned $11 billion in ad revenue, all from users who are underaged.
There are about 49.7 million underaged users on YouTube, with TikTok having 18.9 million, Snapchat with 18 million, Instagram with 16.7 million, Facebook with 9.9 million, and X with 7 million, as reported by Interesting Engineering.
The age bracket under 18 where the sites earned more is between ages 13 to 17 with $8.6 billion, while the younger audiences under 12 years old earned the platforms around $2.1 billion. Other sites get more ad sales than others, especially with users under 12 years old.
YouTube, for instance, earned $959.1 million in ad sales, with Instagram coming in second with $801.1 million. The third site, Facebook, has a huge difference with just $137.2 million. For ages 13 to 18, other platforms have better revenue numbers.
Instagram leads in earnings when it comes to the older age bracket in underaged users, gaining $4 billion in ad sales. TikTok is second in ranking with $2 billion in ad revenue, while YouTube comes in third with just $1.2 billion.
Snapchat benefits the most with ads as it makes up 41% of its total earnings. TikTok follows a close second with 35%. Although Instagram saw billions worth of revenue in ad sales, it actually is just 16% of its total earnings.
Is Social Media Bad for Underaged Users?
That would be hard to tell since social media has a variety of content, and some sites have features that block adult content for young users. However, some experts strongly believe that platforms need to have a minimum age requirement of 13 years old.
American Psychological Association's Chief Science Officer, Dr. Mitch Prinstein expressed that anyone under 13 shouldn't be using social media, especially unfettered access without screen controls or parental monitors, according to CNBC.
Social media can be more harmful to adolescents since these apps are built for maximum engagement, meaning that users will stay on the site longer than they should, which could interfere with both school and sleep.
Prinstein stated that they "can't quit even when they try, or they're going to extreme measures just to make sure they'll have continued access." Around 50% of teens already show signs of clinical dependency on social media, according to research.
