CarterJMRN has been tracking daily social media use among the general public aged 16-69 via our Japan Consumer Sentiment Survey since 2017. In our latest wave in 2021 we found that the most frequently used platform was LINE at 48%, followed by YouTube at 44% and Twitter at 36%.
In a finding that might be surprising to people outside of Japan, Facebook sits further down the list of platforms at just 12% using it everyday.
Over the past five years, Twitter (17% in 2017 vs 36% in 2021) and Instagram (9% in 2017 vs 22% in 2021) are notable for having grown their daily users while Facebook is notable for having not done so (15% in 2017 vs 12% in 2021).
Interesting patterns emerge when we look at daily social media use between the sexes. LINE is much more likely to be used by females (41% males vs 54% females), as is Instagram (16% males vs 29% females) as well as the blogging site, Ameba (2% males vs 7% females). YouTube, on the other hand, has a male skew (48% males vs 40% females).
In terms of age group, LINE’s broad appeal by age is evident, with as much as a third of those in their 60s using it. As might be expected, daily social media is heaviest among those in their 20s. Comparatively speaking, TikTok is making most headway among teens aged 16-19 with just over one in four of that group using it every day.
