Pew Research Center’s new social media survey suggests that X has a surprisingly tenacious hold on U.S. adults, even amid the flood of competitors into the real-time text game.
The study finds that 21 percent of U.S. adults who say they use X take it one step further: they keep X in the lead even as relative newcomers, spawned by the need to gear their products toward taking its viewership.
The most heavily promoted challenger, Threads, is used by 8 percent of adults; with Bluesky at 4 percent and Truth Social at 3 percent. Notably, X’s share has only slightly eased in consecutive Pew cycles — 23 percent this year, 22 percent last year and 21 percent now — implying a gradual shift rather than an abrupt collapse.
The picture underscores an important nuance: though X is not as large as the very largest social platform overall, it remains the ruler of a narrower type of short, real-time text updates that appear in a vertical feed — still a tough one to dislodge.
What Pew measured in its latest U.S. social survey
Pew’s nationally representative survey of U.S. adults looked at usage across the largest social networks and, for the first time, asked about nascent text-forward apps that got more attention after the Twitter-to-X rebrand. The headline result is how X compares to its closest look-alikes: Less than 1 in 10 adults use either Threads or Bluesky, and relatively few use Truth Social.
Against that backdrop, X’s modest multiyear slide — from 23% in 2021 to 21% now — feels more like a stab at stabilization than free fall. Data indicates that some users toyed with the alternatives, but an awful lot have yet to loosen their grip on X.
Threads and Bluesky trail X in adult adoption rates
Threads’ 8% penetration is remarkable considering Meta’s cross-promotion muscle and frictionless onboarding from Instagram. The app has scaled, but Pew’s figure suggests that massive brand reach does not necessarily beget routine for real-time text, a behavior formed by news cycles and communities forged over years.
Bluesky at 4% represents humming but not much mainstream breakout action. The platform thrived in the early days of invite-only scarcity and a strong developer-friendly stance, but is ultimately a niche. The 3 percent of Truth Social users shows how political identity can focus an audience without extending a network’s everyday utility beyond its core group.
Why X continues to endure despite rising competitors
Network effects can be particularly brutal in the “live feed” use case. X still captures high-intensity moments — sports free agency frenzies, breaking political news, severe weather updates — when the main needs are for speed and an abundance of sources, alongside public visibility. Those spikes ripple into everyday behavior, cementing X as the metamedium for journalists, athletes, politicians and creators.
Switching costs also go below the login level. Audience graphs, verified identities, media embeds across publishers and understanding of norms are hard to recreate elsewhere. Even critics who start diversifying to Threads or Bluesky often cross-post on X, to catch the largest real-time audience. That multi-homing would dull the edge of rivals’ growth but leave X as the deathless “first window” for live conversation.
It’s also worth parsing what Pew measures: user adoption, not time spent or revenue. X’s wrangling about ads and brand safety may impact its monetization, but Pew shows that the user base is not falling off a cliff. The stability of usage amid a firestorm implies that the platform’s usefulness for breaking moments outweighs dissatisfaction for many users.
The wider U.S. social landscape beyond real-time text
Above the real-time text niche, there is little change among the established order. Pew finds that YouTube is used by 84 percent of U.S. adults and Facebook by 71%, proving the outsize importance of video and wide social graphs. Instagram hits 50%, TikTok gets to 37%, WhatsApp scores 32%, Reddit lands at 26% and Snapchat strikes silver at 25%.
Visitation trends are also trending up since 2021: TikTok from 21% to 37%, Instagram from 40% to 50%, WhatsApp from 23% to 32%, Reddit from 28% to 36%. That is to say, the point of mass adoption isn’t text-only feeds, but video, messaging, forums and such. X’s power is a high-urgency niche, not top-line reach.
Adults also deviate from teen trends.
And while YouTube is the most popular overall among teenagers, teens cluster next around TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. That divide constrains how much short-form text platforms can grow simply by pursuing younger cohorts.
What to watch next as the real-time text race evolves
Three swinging axes could reframe the race: federation, elections and creator economics. Threads’ support for open standards like ActivityPub could ultimately widen distribution and interoperability, though it might also make the service even easier to ignore since you could just stay on other services but still connect with Threads users. It tends to be the case that election-season news cycles turbocharge real-time posting, a force historically supportive of X’s public square. And the transfer of tangible creator payouts, or discovery tooling that’s more efficient in matching authors with audiences, could tip where influential voices invest their effort.
For now, Pew’s message is clear: new entrants and changed perceptions notwithstanding, X remains the United States’ go-to spot for chat that communicates text first, rolls fast and tells stories quickly; the platform to which rivals must prove their mettle.
