Reddit is the internet’s fastest-growing social media site. Why?

If you had to guess what social media site is growing faster than the rest, which would you pick? TikTok? YouTube? X?

The answer is: none of the above (sort of). According to the latest data from eMarketer, the fastest-growing social media site out there is actually Reddit, where adult users in the U.S. are spending 3.5% more time there per day than they were in Q1 2024. That brings it up to 34 minutes on average per day, per user.

3.5% might not seem like a lot, but Reddit and Instagram are the only two sites in the positives, eMarketer found. Instagram’s gain has been just 0.3% year-over-year (bringing it up to 35 minutes on average per day, per user).

Everyone else? Is in the negatives. Time spent on Facebook has gone down by 2.6% (dropping it to 31 minutes), time spent on both Snapchat and X has gone down 3.4% (31 minutes), and finally–perhaps surprisingly–time spent on TikTok has dropped by a whopping 7% from Q1 2024 to now (47 minutes).

We said ‘sort of’ because, for some reason, eMarketer elected not to include YouTube or Twitch in this dataset. We suppose maybe it doesn’t consider them ‘social media sites,’ but then that begs the question: Where do you draw the line? TikTok is similarly video-based–why does it count, while YouTube and Twitch don’t?

Despite that decision, this data is worth noting. eMarketer attributes Reddit’s significant time growth to the fact that it offers “perspectives from real people that are harder to come by these days.”

We think there’s another force at play here. Google Search has gotten objectively worse in the last couple of years. Various changes, including the introduction of AI, have made it more difficult for the average searcher to quickly and easily find accurate information–so, they may be turning to Reddit.

A recent study from Adobe showed that nearly two in three people in the U.S. use Reddit as a search engine at least once per week, with 41% of Reddit users believing the site is a better search engine than Google. 95% of people who use Reddit as a search engine find the results they get helpful.

And, to top it off, 6% of small business owners said they’ve begun generating more revenue from Reddit than Google. That tracks with another eMarketer report that estimated Reddit’s year-over-year ad revenue will grow by more than 30% this year. (For comparison, eMarketer is tracking TikTok at 25% year-over-year ad revenue growth, and Instagram at 15% YOY ad rev growth.)

So, while Reddit doesn’t take the crown for highest overall amount of time spent per day–that still goes to TikTok by a wide margin–it may very well be seeing this record growth because more people are turning to it as a search engine.

eMarketer also points out the platform may have favor with users because it isn’t “riddled with AI slop.” To be clear, it adds, Reddit is not “immune” to AI-generated content, since it doesn’t ban people from posting about and/or using AI. But within its individual discussion communities, aka subreddits, moderators can choose to ban AI–and many have.

That leaves Reddit as “one of few social platforms with human interaction at its core,” eMarketer wrote.

People wanting a haven from AI makes sense, considering platforms like X have been increasingly overtaken by AI bots, and YouTube is constantly encouraging users to embrace generative AI.

Whatever the reason for Reddit’s user time growth, it’s clear people are looking to the site more and more. We’re curious how much more it will grow–both in browsing/searching time and ad revenue–as 2025 progresses.