RBC: 44% of US teens chose Snapchat as the one social network they would keep if trapped on deserted island, ahead of 24% for Instagram and 14% for Facebook
Kurt Wagner / Recode :
Context & Ripple Effects
The teen crown has been rotating fast: a 2015 survey had Instagram as teens' most important network at 33%, with Snapchat trailing at 19% (Instagram led the teen rankings two years earlier). By October 2017, Snapchat had taken the lead, with 47% of 6,100 surveyed teens calling it their preferred network, up from 39% in the spring (Snapchat's preference lead widened through 2017).
RBC's deserted-island framing adds a loyalty test on top of preference: asked which single network they would keep, 44% of US teens chose Snapchat versus 24% for Instagram and just 14% for Facebook — confirming that Snapchat's lead is not just usage but attachment, and that Facebook is a distant third with the cohort advertisers care most about.
First-order effects
- Snapchat enters 2018 holding both the preference lead and the loyalty lead among US teens, strengthening its pitch to advertisers chasing the 18-24 demographic that Pew later measured at 78% Snapchat usage.
- Facebook faces the weakest position of the three with teens — third on both preference and the keep-one metric — putting pressure on its Instagram unit to close the gap.
Second-order effects
- Internal documents show Instagram responded with an aggressive, yearslong campaign to win teens back: boosting teen-friendly influencers and tuning its recommendation algorithm toward content designed to pull teens back into the app.
- Rivals now compete for a cohort whose loyalty is measurable and fickle, making teen-preference surveys like RBC's a recurring benchmark that shapes product and ad strategy at all three companies.
Third-order effects
- Teen leadership keeps rotating rather than consolidating: by 2020 TikTok had overtaken Instagram as the second-most-popular app for US teens while Snapchat still led at 34% (TikTok displaced Instagram among teens by 2020) — suggesting no platform owns the cohort for long.
- If the pattern holds, ad dollars aimed at teens will keep repricing around whichever platform currently holds preference, forcing incumbents to buy growth (influencers, algorithm changes) rather than assume organic retention.
The trend: US teen social-network loyalty is a rotating prize — Snapchat took it from Instagram between 2015 and 2017, and TikTok disrupted the ranking again by 2020 — keeping teen-preference surveys a standing competitive battleground.