While social media trends come and go at an ever-increasing clip, a few online preferences have managed to endure. Chief among these is Americans’ intense, widely-held enthusiasm for YouTube.  

In addition to being the most used and most trusted social platform that Morning Consult tracks every year, our latest survey reveals that it’s also the platform on which Americans simply have the most fun. 

A resounding yes for YouTube

When presented with a list of major social media platforms and asked to identify which they found most enjoyable, approximately 1 in 3 U.S. adults (34%) said YouTube, a figure that was double-digits higher than the next most-selected platform (Facebook). 

More interesting, however, is the parity of YouTube’s support across key demographics: Roughly equal shares of gender, generational and political cohorts all chose the video-sharing platform as the most enjoyable — though these shares were highest among men (41%) and Gen Xers (39%).

Amid our ultra-polarized cultural climate, this kind of universal appeal is approaching extinction. But what makes YouTube especially unique is that its affinity is attributable to so many factors. 

First, YouTube is a legacy social media brand: It turned 20 years old earlier this year, with Facebook being its only competitor still around from that era of the internet. 

Second, YouTube is widely liked across all demographic cohorts. The share of Gen Zers (33%) who identified YouTube as the most enjoyable platform was roughly equal to that of all U.S. adults, and it also consistently appears on annual Morning Consult rankings among young consumers, like Gen Z’s favorite brands. Even Gen Alphas are already hopping on the YouTube bandwagon.

Third, YouTube’s utility keeps evolving. More Americans now watch the platform’s content on TV than on mobile, a shift that is reflective of YouTube’s place not just at the center of the social media universe, but at the center of the entire media universe. As all mediums pivot to video, YouTube — with its generous monetization policies and reliable audiences — has become the de facto home for content producers and advertisers alike. 

Finally, YouTube’s parent company offers a huge halo. Alphabet has largely stayed out of the spotlight in comparison to its peers, especially when it comes to its leadership team. While other social media executives like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg routinely behave in polarizing ways, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan are much less headline-making. (Previous Morning Consult research has found that bad CEO behavior can negatively impact brand reputation, so this is generally a positive.)

But beyond YouTube exists another class of well-enjoyed social platforms, and it's occupied by Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. 

Facebook’s solo second position is largely buoyed by older Americans; the share of Gen Xers and baby boomers who selected it as the most enjoyable platform was 27% and 33%, respectively. Meanwhile, TikTok just edges out Instagram as the third most enjoyable platform, propelled by its popularity among Gen Zers. 

Women generally reported greater enjoyment of multimedia apps like TikTok and Pinterest than men, while the opposite was true for primarily text-based apps like X, mirroring findings from past Morning Consult research on social media usage more broadly.

Exhausted by X?

Our latest survey also asked respondents about the social platforms they find to be least enjoyable. The near-universal answer was X, a platform whose frequent outages, malfunctions and generally dilapidating user experience since Elon Musk’s takeover in late 2022 have been well-documented.

The gaps between platforms are mostly smaller, suggesting Americans’ negative feelings about their online experiences aren’t as strong as their positive ones. That said, the political divide is extremely stark here: The share of Democrats who said X is the least enjoyable social media platform (33%) was nearly three times that of Republicans (13%).

Zooming out, in a separate question, more than half of U.S. adults (52%) said the content they see across social media is always or often "repetitive and tiresome.” When considered alongside the broader decline in active posting behavior, this data serves as a warning sign that — even if a few platforms are still winning big — consumers may be beginning to fatigue from the standard social media experience.

This means that not only is it more important than ever for brands to dedicate resources to creating differentiated and engaging social content, but also to consider investing in wholly-owned channels, like newsletters, which are largely insulated from changing user behaviors (and the whims of business and political leaders).