Most students in the 21st century are likely to use some kind of social media everyday. According to AACAP, 90% of teens today use social media everyday. “The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is a 501 non-profit professional association in the United States dedicated to facilitating psychiatric care for children and adolescents,” according to aacap.org. With social media being such a big part of today’s society, it is important to inform ourselves on how much time we spend on it and what platform we use the most. A study was conducted at Greenwood High School to determine which social media was used the most among the students and how long they spend on it and how this may vary between grade levels. 

On average,students at Greenwood High School spend anywhere from Two to four hours a day on their phone. Specifically, Most students at Greenwood High school stated they spend about four hours on the phone a day. The most popular social media among students at Greenwood is TikTok. While a number of people have unpopular opinions  about TikTok, students here at Greenwood high school seem to be quite fond.  More than 30% of students at Greenwood High School stating it is their most used social media. 

Greenwood High School students range from 14 years old to 18 years old. Naturally  this age gap might create a difference in their responses.  With these results graphs were drawn to determine the most used social media platform and how much time teens spend on their phone a day. There were graphs drawn for each different grade level. TikTok is not only the most popular app among the whole school but is also the most used app by almost half of the ninth graders at the school. 48.4 % of ninth grade students spend either two hours or four hours on social media a day. 24.2 %of those students stated that they spent 2 hours on social media and 24.2 % of students stated that they spend four hours on social media a day. 

33.3% of the 10th grade students use TikTok the most,similar to their ninth grade peers. Even though they spend most of their time on the same app, they do not not spend the same amount of time on their phone. Most 10th grade students only spend about two hours on their phone a day. 

Unlike both ninth and tenth grade students, eleventh grade students do not spend most of the time on TikTok. The most used app by eleventh grade students actually happens to be Instagram. Almost 30% of the students spend most of their time on Instagram everyday. Almost half of the eleventh grade student results stated that they use their phone for an average of four hours a day.

Like the eleventh grade students, the senior most used app was Instagram. Almost 40 % of the seniors say they use Instagram more than any other social media. Nearly half of the senior students say that they spend only 2 hours on their social media a day. With 45% of the senior students only spending 2 hours on their phone it makes you wonder if it could be because of their busy schedules. 

Most ninth and tenth grade students spend most of their time on TikTok and spend about four hours on their phone while most juniors and seniors spend most of their time on Instagram and they only spend about 2 hours on their phone a day. The younger students spend more time on their phone. What is your favorite social media? How long do you spend on your phone?