This report presents data collected in a multi-year investigation of how Australians use media. It explores social media and YouTube use as well as the importance of internet access to media consumption generally. The report includes results from a survey whose participants represent the Australian population and insights from 70 hour-long interviews with Australians about their media use. 

The investigation explores Australians’ use of different social media features – the different ways to use social media services such as messaging, search, or feeds of followed or recommended posts or videos – and what they like about them. The questions about YouTube explore what types of content are most watched and valued, and the inquiry about internet access identifies its role in media use and its reliability.

Key findings

• Social media is widely used in Australia (87%), but only Facebook, Instagram and YouTube Shorts are used by more than half of survey respondents.
• For most users, news is a very small, and often incidental component of their social media use.
• YouTube is also widely used in Australia (85%) and follows a similar pattern to social media with time spent using decreasing when moving up through technology generation.
• Australians access the majority of the media they consume through the internet.
• Nearly 20% of respondents report daily problems with internet access. Those in major cities experience the most difficulty on a weekly basis.