Source: IQ stock market
New compilations of data reveal the growing popularity of short-form video streaming platform TikTok among children. Till the year 2019, YouTube was in lead among kids with them spending approximately 48 minutes on it as opposed to the 38 minutes on TikTok globally. However, with the shift in popularity in June 2020, TikTok topped the chart with the average of 75 minutes with YouTube having an average of 64 minutes.
Moreover, the disparity in the average grew more in 2021 with youngsters spending an average of 91 minutes on TikTok as opposed to 56 minutes on YouTube. Findings specified these details in the US, UK and Spain with a wider shift on a regional basis. Clearly, YouTube, along with companies like Meta are aware of this shift. Owing to this, various platforms have copied the short-form video feature for themselves in many forms such as Reels.
Specifically, YouTube came up with its own version of this called ‘YouTube shorts,’ which the company believes would aid in driving users to its long form videos. Recently, YouTube touted that its short-form version had surpassed 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users. Further, it had stated how channels bringing videos had seen gains in watch time. However, this data considers a wider audience and not just youngsters on the platforms.
The result of the introduction of ‘shorts’:
In spite of the increasing adoption of the Shorts, research from Qustodio shows how younger users have clearly chosen TikTok’s version. Moreover, TikTok has even been gradually pushing its audience to watch longer contends. For example, TikTok expanded the upper limit of video length to 10 minutes from 3 minutes. With this, the average length of videos on the platform is also increasing. Last year in November, TikTok defined the optimum time for videos should 21 to 34 seconds, which it previously stated should be from 11 to 17 seconds.
A more detailed report from Qustodio showed YouTube was not the only one to face the impact of TikTok’s growing popularity among Alpha and Gen Z. Youngsters clearly use a variety of apps as compared to the older generation. These include Snapchat and Roblox, which has been used by 56% and 82% of kids respectively.
At the end of the day, YouTube still leads the list in terms of time spent compared to other services. In global terms, kids spend about 56 minutes day on YouTube, leading services like Netflix and Disney Plus where they spend 45 and 47 minutes respectively.
