TikTok outranked YouTube to dominate among younger users globally: Report

San Francisco:  Kids and teenagers are watching an average of 91 minutes of content on the Chinese short-video platform TikTok daily compared to just 56 minutes on Google-owned YouTube globally, new data has shown. The data for 2021 paints a larger picture of how TikTok has gripped the next generation of web users -- Gen Z (born between the mid-to-late-1990s and the 2010s) and Gen Alpha (born after the early to mid-2010s), reports TechCrunch.

The TikTok phenomenon began in June 2020 when it started to outrank YouTube in terms of the average minutes per day of watch time by people ages 4 through 18. In the years since TikTok has continued to dominate with younger users, the report said late on Wednesday. The kids and teenagers in the US last year spent an average of 99 minutes per day on TikTok versus 61 minutes on YouTube. 

In the UK, TikTok usage was up to 102 minutes per day, versus just 53 minutes on YouTube. YouTube also has a short-video platform called YouTube Shorts that crossed 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users last month, less than two years after its launch. The users, however, belong to all age groups and not just kids and teenagers.

The company also did not take into account how TikTok has been steadily inching into its territory with long-form content of its own, and could potentially lure creators to a platform where both shorter and longer content is more intertwined.

TikTok, which is banned in India, on Wednesday introduced the 'Content Levels' feature to help further safeguard the viewing experience for kids and teenagers. In the coming weeks, the platform will introduce an early version of the feature to help prevent content with overtly mature themes from reaching audiences between ages 13-17. A maturity score will be allocated to the concerned video to help prevent those under 18 from viewing it across the TikTok experience, the company said in a statement.