Threads and Bluesky still have a long way to go to bring X to the US, according to data from The latest Pew Research Center report released this week.
The research firm asked about these smaller services for the first time and found they are used by fewer than 1 in 10 US adults or less.
While X isn’t one of the biggest social networks in the US, it’s still the best in the smaller market of social apps that focus on short, real-time text posts that appear in a vertical feed.
This space has seen increased competition since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X in October 2022, as Musk’s changes to the platform’s content moderation policies and the site’s political shift to the right prompted some users to seek alternatives.
In addition to the growth seen by open source decentralized networks such as Mastodon and Bluesky, other startups have launched would-be Twitter competitors such as Spill, Post, T2 (Pebble) and Hive. However, many of them have since closed.
Pew’s data shows just how tight X’s grip on the market remains.
Even Meta, with all its resources and platform power, has yet to beat X with its rival, Threads, according to the report.
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According to Pew, 21% of US adults said they have used X, compared to only 8% who have used Threads and 4% who have used Bluesky. Truth Social, meanwhile, had attracted 3% of US adults.
Despite that competition, the X hasn’t seen much of a slide in usage over the years, according to the report. For example, Pew’s report on US adult social media Usage published early last year found that X was subsequently used by 22% of US adults. Of the 2021 report showed Twitter (before it was renamed X) was used by 23% of US adults.
In other words, if X is declining, it’s been a long, slow decline.
This year’s report also found that YouTube and Facebook continue to be the most widely used platforms by US adults, with 84% and 71% saying they used them, respectively.
Meanwhile, 50% of US adults said they used Instagram, 37% used TikTok, 32% WhatsApp, 26% Reddit and 25% Snapchat.
Many of these services have seen their adoption increase over time, Pew noted. TikTok is up from 21% in 2021 and Instagram, now used by half of US adults, is up from 40% in 2021. About a third of adults now use WhatsApp, up from 23% in 2021.
Reddit, which has become an AI-era darling thanks to numerous content licensing deals, was used by only 18% of US adults in 2021, compared to 26% today.
Of course, all these figures look very different from the American ones adolescent social media usewhere YouTube remains No. 1, but is then followed by a diverse set of top apps, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.
