With Facebook and X roughly 20 years old, Instagram and Pinterest about 15, and even TikTok approaching its 10th birthday next year, social media has proven its staying power and ability to impact contemporary culture. There is clear evidence that these and other social media platforms are central components of the everyday lives of many Canadians. Social media are frequently the first sources of information, communication and entertainment users engage with when they wake up in the morning, perhaps to hear the latest news, share a joke with friends, or seek input for daily decision making. Waiting in line? Instagram is there to kill the time. Need a new Phở recipe? Tiktok to the rescue. Want to argue politics with stranger? Reddit has you covered. What we call social media enables each of those tasks and more, and does so for an increasing percentage of Canadians each year. This is why the intersection between the actions of everyday life and the ever-evolving set of technologies that facilitate being instantly connected to the world at large is ripe for continuous examination.
For the past few years, Environics Research has been asking Canadians about their social media usage to understand and track use habits, platform preferences, and audience changes over time. For example, which platforms are most popular with which Canadians? And who regularly uses which sites?
Since social media are not uniform – the several distinct platforms involved support different use cases, have different strengths and weaknesses, and appeal to different user bases – we take great care in answering these questions with the nuance that includes audience demographics, psychographics and generational segmentations.
Brady Curlew
Director – Mobility Services at Environics Research
Knowing such things can enhance how public institutions communicate with citizens, how companies speak to existing and potential customers, how charities connect with donors or populations in need, or how budding influencers connect with fans, etc. Essentially, this research seeks to help clients reach their core audiences in a large, fragmented and ever-changing landscape – one that’s highly competitive and constantly generating mountains of data. Therefore, our goal is to help establish important baseline insights to guide social media strategy for a variety of stakeholders.
General Trends in Usage
Our first exploration of social media trends in 2023 found 87% of Canadians used at least one social media site on a weekly basis. We fielded the same survey questions in February 2024 and February 2025, finding a one-point uptick in usage each year: 88% in 2024, 89% in 2025. With nearly nine in ten Canadians now reporting at least weekly usage of at least one major platform, we continue to explore differences in the values and demographics of various platforms users – seeking to help our clients meet the growing imperative to understand this complex landscape.
Facebook continues to be Canada’s most used platform. Out of 2,162 Canadians surveyed in 2025, over two-thirds of respondents (67%) report using Facebook at least weekly, a share that’s unchanged from 2024. After Facebook, the next most used platforms are YouTube (53%), Instagram (41%), TikTok (18%), and X (17%). Usage rates for these platforms have also remained consistent since 2024. One platform showing gradual but consistent growth is Reddit; 15% of Canadians now report weekly usage (2024: 11%; 2023: 9%).
Social Media Usage Year-Over-Year 2025
Graph Insights Credit: Environics Research
The fact that usage of both X and the Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) have remained so steady in recent years might surprise some, given that these platforms have been the targets of significant public backlash due to platform changes and the political affiliations of their owners.
Canadians’ inability to post links to news articles on Meta platforms – a change in the site’s functionality that Meta introduced in response to Canada’s enactment of Bill C-18, the Online News Act – continues to be controversial. Canadians differ in their understanding of the origins of this change. Some believe the Canadian federal government is seeking to block Canadians’ news access or that it is a bad policy that will negatively affect journalists. Others believe the change is warranted since Canadian news publishers and journalists deserve compensation and since Canadians are still able to access news through the publishing websites it is not an overreach.
Meta’s adoption of community notes (an approach first adopted by X, replacing dedicated fact-checking with contextual information provided by users), has also created controversy. Meta claims the change will reduce bias, but others claim the move away from fact checking will be detrimental to Canadians. Some Canadians are also critical of Mark Zuckerberg’s contributions to and associations with American President Donald Trump since his election win in late 2024.
X faced similar criticism during owner Elon Musk’s tenure with the Trump administration through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has since departed this role to focus on Tesla and X, but Tesla sales in Canada continue to decline (a trend that may be driven both by politically-motivated boycotts and the end of the federal government’s electric vehicle rebate). If Canadians are moving away from Tesla due to dismay at Musk, no such backlash against X is evident from usage data: Canadians’ engagement with the platform sees little change since 2024 despite chatter about competing text-based platforms.
Social Media Usage 2025
Graph Insights Credit: Environics Research
Threads quickly drew users and attention after Meta launched it in mid-2023, but weekly usage among Canadians remains low, with just 4% of Canadians saying they use Threads (up from 2% in 2024). Environics’ 2025 study included three other platforms that have been promoted as competitors to X: Bluesky, Truth Social, and Rednote. Bluesky is seen as a more left-leaning version of X, trying to stay true to what the platform was when it launched as Twitter (and featuring many of the same functions). As of early 2025, 3% of Canadians report using Bluesky at least weekly. Truth Social, a right-leaning platform favoured by President Trump (and owned by Trump Media & Technology Group), as well as Rednote, a Chinese competitor, each attract fewer than 1% of Canadians as weekly users. So, although options other than X remain, it seems Canadians seeking a mainly text-based platform are not jumping ship in high numbers. It may be more useful to consider who is using X versus other kinds of platforms (e.g., video-centric offerings), as opposed to which X-like substitute will win the day.
What generations favour which social media platforms?
Overall, Canadians report using a growing number of social media platforms regularly. In 2025, they reported using an average of 2.7 social platforms on a weekly basis compared to 2.6 in 2024 and 2.5 in 2023. However, the differences between generations are significant. Gen Z (4.0) and Millennials (3.4) use the greatest number of platforms while Gen X (2.4) and Boomers (1.9) use fewer. Facebook and YouTube are the first and second most used social platform for all generations except Gen Z; for this youngest tracked generation, Instagram (69%) and YouTube (64%) are on top. Just half (51%) of Gen Z suggest they use Facebook.
TikTok continues to be significantly more popular among Millennials and Gen Z (especially women) than among older generations. X continues to be more popular among Gen Z (29%) than any other generation, increasing from 27% in 2024 and 20% in 2023 for this cohort while all other generations have declined year-over-year. Canadian Millennials remain the most likely to use Reddit (26%), but Gen Z (25%) is closing the gap.
Social Media Usage By Generation
Graph Insights Credit: Environics Research
Gender Differences by Generation
Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram have the highest user penetration overall (there is a steep drop-off in usage after these three giants) – so it’s perhaps not surprising that across all generations these three platforms dominate. But the story gets interesting when we look at the next (fourth) most used platform by gender within each generation. Overall, TikTok is the next most used platform among women while X is next for men. Younger generations, who use a greater number of platforms more regularly, make up a greater share of users who regularly explore beyond the top three (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) — and so youth preferences help to drive these overall fourth-place results.
Looking to older generations, Pinterest is the next platform of choice for Gen X (17%) and Boomer (17%) women, while LinkedIn is more used by Gen X (21%) and Boomer (19%) men. There is, however, a steep drop-off in penetration for both these platforms as these generations do tend to use fewer than three platforms each on a weekly basis.
In younger generations, 60% of Gen Z women and 28% of Millennial women use TikTok on a weekly basis compared to 27% of Gen Z men and 18% of Millennial men. Gen Z women are only slightly more likely to use Facebook (61%) than TikTok (60%); the latter is catching up to more established platforms when it comes to usage, at least among youth.
Gen Z men are only slightly more likely to use Facebook (41%) than X (40%) and about twice as likely to use X as Gen Z women are (19%). Among Millennial men, Reddit is the fourth most used platform (34%); Millennial women (17%) are half as likely as their male age peers to use it.
Social Values
Even within generations and demographic profiles, there are important differences between Canadians due to diverse Social Values (also known as psychographics) that help drive consumer motivations and behaviours. For example, not all Gen Z women will share the same beliefs or motivations, making it crucial to understand the distinct segments that fall within each cohort. Overall, Canadian social media users tend to over-index on key values such as Joy of Consumption and Consumptivity. But we find that users of specific social platforms tend to have some distinct Social Values – values on which they over-index relative to other social media users. Understanding these values can help organizations reach these users effectively.
Facebook users score higher on Fatalism, Personal Expression, and Confidence in Advertising. Taken together, these values indicate users’ acceptance of consumerism alongside a sense that they lack control of their lives.
Among Instagram users – perhaps not surprisingly, given that the medium is so visual – we see values that focus aesthetics and display. Pursuit of Novelty, Pursuit of Originality, and Ostentatious Consumption are some of the top values for these users.
TikTok
TikTok users over-index on some aesthetic values as well, such as Status via Home and Need for Status Recognition. They also score high on values that point to living on the edge: values such as Pursuit of Intensity and Vitality suggest a desire to live intensely while feeling good about their health. This finding is perhaps unsurprising as the platform is known for “TikTok Trends” that can sometimes be extreme.
X
As X has changed over the past few years, its users seem to have become even more distinct from users of other platforms, perhaps due to the higher proportion of male users compared to Instagram and TikTok. Enthusiasm for New Technology continues to be the most stand-out value for these users – maybe unsurprisingly, given owner Elon Musk’s reputation as a tech visionary responsible for innovative firms like Tesla and SpaceX. We also see higher scores Interest in the Unexplained for these users which may explain perceptions that X is used to share and promote conspiracy theories or is more prone to misinformation.
Among LinkedIn users, we see high scores on socially connected values. Users score high on Community Involvement as well as Global Consciousness, suggesting an interest in being active in local communities while also feeling connected to the world as a whole. The professional nature of this social platform may disproportionately attract people inclined to take action and strive to be leaders. We also see Brand Genuineness as the highest-ranking value among these users, suggesting that they admire organizations that move beyond sales and embrace authenticity (and perhaps seek to do the same in their own professional lives).
Reddit users also tend to over-index on Enthusiasm for New Technology, a finding that tracks with the site’s reputation for attracting more technologically-inclined users. But, perhaps in a sign of the platform’s expanding user base, we also see higher scores for values such as Financial Security and Consumptivity. This makes sense given that subreddits such as Wallstreet Bets have become synonymous with Reddit, indicators of the platform’s evolving culture and audience. There is a subreddit for nearly every topic and hobby, giving users unique experiences directly related to their interests and enthusiasms, however niche.
Why does the current state of social media matter?
The social media landscape is always changing – in ways big and small. Shifting algorithms shape and reshape the diet of online content that most Canadians consume. Even hugely popular platforms can be threatened by boycotts or rule changes by governments; TikTok continues to face an existential threat and the fate of the platform, which has only gotten more popular in the past year, remains uncertain.
As new platforms emerge and existing ones evolve their offerings, media coverage and social chatter can create skewed perceptions of which platforms are ascendant and which are “over.” For organizations investing in social media campaigns and strategies, it is essential to examine how platforms are actually being used by Canadians and whether usage patterns are really changing. Understanding the demographics and values of platform users will help communicators make the most of their attempts to reach a target audience.
Keeping pace with social media trends can be daunting – platforms that may have been originally tailored provide social links between family and friends are now chief avenues for marketing and brand building, or entertainment hubs that rival traditional visual media stalwarts like television, or political pulpits, or stages for creativity. The list goes on. However, sometimes the essential facts are simpler than they appear despite the complexity involved.
The crux of our 2025 survey findings show nearly 90% Canadians are using social media on a weekly basis, and that this share has increased slightly over the past three years. Alongside overall usage increasing, platform patterns are evolving with different platforms attracting different Canadians. Not every message will resonate equally across social media options, so it’s vital to understand each platform’s distinct audiences and communications should be tailored to each social media subculture and ecosystem. A combination of social intelligence, Social Values insights, and traditional research methods can guide any stakeholder, be they a public organization, business, community group, or individual as they work to adapt their messaging to make the most of each platform.
Fatalism
Personal Expression
Confidence In Advertising