00:00Going back to Mr. Zuckerberg's testimony, his argument was that this category or demographic
00:05is a small part of the Instagram business. Does your research support that?
00:13Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is a little bit murkier than that, right? I mean, I do think
00:17he
00:17maybe has some points when he says they're not a demographic that is majorly monetized and that
00:23they maybe don't bring in a ton of ad revenue. But that does not mean they're not significant.
00:26I mean, when you look at our eMarketer data, we see that in the U.S. at least, about 11
00:32% of
00:33Instagram users are under the age of 18. And so, again, not a huge majority, but that's a
00:38significant percentage. And also, I think the numbers tell one story, but the reality is these
00:43platforms gain a lot by essentially hooking these users young because the younger that they get on
00:48these platforms, the more likely they are to continue using them in the future. So, again,
00:52you can look at the numbers. You can look at maybe how much revenue they're generating from
00:57teens per year. But really, it's about setting these behaviors early and benefiting in the long
01:01term.
01:02Mr. Zuckerberg stated that teens equate to 1% of revenue, which I thought was an interesting data
01:09point. This question about the future of Instagram in particular, but the other meta family of apps
01:18is, well, what would they change? And part of the discussion in the testimony was the tension on
01:24the rules they have in place and the privacy of the individuals that are signing up for them.
01:30Does that tension have any bearing on how they do business going forward?
01:35Yeah. I mean, I think it's still really early to say, but I mean, for sure, I think depending on
01:40how
01:40these lawsuits play out, if they end up having to fundamentally change how their platforms work,
01:45whether it's the algorithms or autoplay, infinite scroll, whatever it might be, that will in turn
01:51have an impact on how teenagers use these platforms. And something we've noticed is that,
01:54you know, it was interesting to see him really kind of downplay to what extent
01:58meta has really prioritized time spent as a metric when our numbers show. And just, you know,
02:03paying attention to the company in general, we know that time spent is definitely a crucial metric
02:08for meta and all social networks. And we have seen time spent among teenagers specifically
02:13rise year over year on Instagram. And so we do see that, you know, anything that would kind of
02:19chip away at that time spent, if they would have to make changes to the platform, what would have an
02:23impact? But your research shows that teens are spending significantly more time on TikTok
02:29than on Instagram. I think I'm correct in saying right. I just want to point out that with this trial,
02:36TikTok and also Snap are not parties to the case because they had settlements prior to it.
02:42But if we look bigger picture at the industry, how will these other players be looking at this
02:48trial, do you think?
02:50Yeah, I mean, I think they're all probably looking at it through a similar lens. I know YouTube is
02:55trying to really make the case that it operates very differently than a meta, than a TikTok,
03:00than a Snapchat. And so I think, you know, that could potentially see YouTube play out a little
03:06bit differently. But I think in general, yes, especially a company like TikTok, which is kind
03:10of, you know, it's really equated with teenage use, right? A large part of why it became so popular
03:16in the US in the first place was because of young people, because of teenagers. So and like, as you
03:21said, yes, our figures do show that teenagers spend a ton of time on TikTok, definitely more than
03:26Instagram. Although we are seeing that time spent, you know, come down a little bit year over year,
03:31which kind of suggests that TikTok isn't maybe the shiny new object it was, you know, five, six
03:36years ago.
03:38The difficult question, Minda, is what happens next, right? And your research, others point to
03:45lawmakers, you know, putting out a new set of rules. Is there momentum behind that pathway?
03:52So yes and no. I think there is momentum at the state and the federal level. We are seeing lawmakers
03:59and regulators try try to address a lot of these concerns independent of this lawsuit. These
04:05lawsuits. That being said, they're running up running up against a lot of challenges for one
04:11is big tech lobbying. I mean, these companies are lobbying against a lot of these these bills and
04:16laws. There's challenges happening in court. And then even, you know, generally, this tends to be
04:21a bipartisan issue. I mean, it's we see lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to kind of rein
04:26in
04:26the power of these platforms and rein in what they perceive to be harms. But the way they want
04:32to go about it often differs. And so that's another challenge. Enforcement is a challenge. We're seeing
04:37that play out in Australia with the ban under 16s. You know, they're having a lot of success in some
04:42ways, but they are having some enforcement challenges and actually getting people under 16 to completely
04:46stay off these platforms. And so it's a messy area to regulate.
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