70% of young people spend more than two hours a day on social media, CSO finds
The CSO have published an update on their Children and Young Persons hub, showing a snapshot into the lives of young people in Ireland.
The CSO looked at things like smoking rates, social media usage, mental health, discrimination and leisure activities.
In 2024, 70.8% of young people aged 18-24 reported spending over two hours a day on social media.
In terms of general mental health, 82.5% of young people aged 18-24 described it as fair, good or very good.
When it comes to discrimination, almost a third of young people aged 18-24 experience this. Although 79% took no action regarding this.
On further analysis, the CSO found that less than 1% of households with children under 16 were unable to afford age-appropriate books in 2024.
While 5.9% of households with a child under 16 were unable to afford activities like swimming or playing an instrument.
Diane Hillery, Statistician in the Social Statistics Directorate of the CSO, said: “The CSO’s Children and Young Persons Hub indicators related to young people in Ireland across a wide range of topics.
“Recent updates to the Hub have included a number of child poverty and well-being indicators. These indicators were collated by the Child Poverty and Wellbeing Programme Office in the Department of An Taoiseach. They have been brought together from multiple data sources, further illustrating how the Hub can collate a variety of statistics on the lives of children and young people in one easy-to-find location.
These indicators support the Child Poverty Target set by the Government in 2025 and will continue to be developed and presented on the Hub as data becomes available.
Data across the Hub allows us to see whether there are changes in the behaviour of young people in Ireland over time. In 2025, 9% of young people aged 20-24 years reported being daily smokers. This was the lowest percentage reported in the period examined from 2015 to 2025 for this age group, with the highest being 25.4% in 2018.
“New and updated data will continue to be added to the Hub. The CSO welcome comments and suggestions from users on the Hub, which can be sent to cyphub@cso.ie.”