
Loading summary
Paolo Pescatore
Foreign.
Marcus
Hey, gang. It's Monday, March 9th. Emmy, Paolo and listeners, welcome to behind the Numbers, an E marketer podcast made possible by rokt. I'm Marcus. Join me for today's conversation. We have two folks who call New York home. One of them is one of our analysts called Emmy Liedeman. Hello.
Emmy Liedeman
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Marcus
Welcome to the show. Of course. Of course. The other one is our demographics analysts. Analysts. Two people. She's two people.
Paolo Pescatore
Thank you. Hi, Marcus. It's good to see you again.
Marcus
Hello. Terribly sorry for that heinous introduction. Rough. Anyway, today's fact. So I went to the British coast this weekend and I saw some SEALs, not Navy. So I thought I'd share some facts about seals. You can check out. I'll put a photo on Instagram because this little baby is just adorable. Okay, so seal facts. Seals maintain. I was like, how do they just. They're just lying on the beach just hanging out, like in a little banana shape with the cold water just hitting them and they obviously swim in it. I was like, how are they?
Paolo Pescatore
Dream life.
Marcus
What? Their life. I know. Well. I was like, it's a cold life, but it's not. Because they have thick blubber which even in icy water can keep their body temperature constant. Which sounds amazing. I'm always cold. Seals, mammals. But can hold their breath for an hour and a half.
Paolo Pescatore
Wow.
Marcus
Storing oxygen in their blood. Yep. Most als travel around five miles an hour, so they're cruising. But can reach speeds of 15 to 22 for short bursts. In a single year. The northern elephant seal can travel over 12,000 miles, which is halfway around the planet. Mostly for food, I think. Perhaps mating. I'm not sure. But they can dive about a mile down. Some go deeper than. That's basically deeper than most submarines so far. And seals, they look smooth, but they actually have fur. It's just short and dense. I didn't touch one, but I did want to give the baby a hug.
Emmy Liedeman
But you had to restrain yourself.
Marcus
You have no idea. I'll send you the picture. You two and everyone else is on Instagram. We'll put it on the company. Instagram.
Paolo Pescatore
I want to see. Yes.
Marcus
It was tough. Anyway, today's real topic. What defines teens? Digital life. We should probably start by defining what a teen is, which seems silly because you would just assume it's the person whose age ends, no starts, no ends with teen. But it's not Paolo. How do we define it?
Paolo Pescatore
The marketer defines teens as 12 to 17. We narrow it down to make sure that we focus in on Populations that are still in school under the care of their parents. And so ours is a little bit different than the general consensus of what a teen is.
Marcus
Right. And it's infuriating because as we were saying before the show, we take one year of Gen Alpha and mix that in a pot with a bunch of years of Gen Z. But we don't pick the 18 and 19 years that are counted in conventional teenage years.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah, I mean, it kind of makes sense in terms of this is where the habits are starting to sort of coalesce and there is change within that section. Right. We see a massive jump in social media usage between, like, the ages of 12 to 14 to, like 15 to 17.
Marcus
Yes.
Paolo Pescatore
But it really does help to focus in on what that looks like, particularly when it comes to older teens, because we're talking about a population that has so much time on their hands and, like, is very heavily invested in the culture and like, they just have so much more space to engage in a lot of these aspects that a lot of adults don't get to. Because we're all bogged down by responsibilities and jobs.
Marcus
Yeah, some of us. I'm off playing with seals. But how, how do teens decide which devices to use for certain digital activities? They're probably doing a lot of different things online on a lot of different devices. What are they doing where?
Paolo Pescatore
I mean, the smartphone is the default. We all have a smartphone in our hands. Typically around the age of 12 to 13 is when a lot of teens start getting their phones or their smartphones. But we're talking about a current generation that's been managing or learning how to use a smartphone since they were pretty much babies. And so it's very instinctual and there's often a joke. Emmy, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but millennials will freak out if you're trying to do a big purchase on a phone. That's a computer task. How dare you plan a trip on a phone. But it's very common for Gen Zers to do it because it's kind of. It's just so instinctive. But that being said, there are definitely activities that they tend to gravitate towards other devices for, such as homework, long form essays, viewing, like more streaming, obviously tends to be done on larger, larger devices, but that doesn't, that doesn't mean it's all concentrated there. It's not exclusive.
Emmy Liedeman
I think it was a few years ago when people coined the term millennial pause.
Paolo Pescatore
Yes.
Emmy Liedeman
They noticed, like, I guess older gen Alpha and some of most Of Gen Z. Notice that millennials, when they start a video, instead of just speaking immediately, they have to pause because it's instinctual. From when they had like older cameras that needed a second to start. So I think that's just like a funny example of how everything is. This is just reality for them. Like this is. Smartphones are just like what technology is and they don't know any differently. There's like funny little ways that it shows up like that. But then it's also really clear in terms of like how they view shopping and what they consider a safe purchase.
Marcus
Yeah, shopping. As Emmy just said, something they do on, on their phones, according to pals got this fantastic chart in her new research on teens. It's from puree. No, sorry, this is from app anywhere. And it breaks out activity down, left and then device along the top. Shopping is the thing that they do most on their smartphones. That stunned me. More so than playing games, watching shorts, YouTube video calls, music. It's shopping.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that comes down to social commerce. Right. It's not just that these purchases are occurring through social platforms, which is a thing like teens have been engaging in social commerce at a higher rate than the general population for quite a bit now. But it's that so much of their world revolves around these social platforms. It's where they discover products, it's where they look up to see whether the product is worth purchasing. It's where they kind of sort of, it's the, it's their like one stop shop for everything. And so why not just make the purchase right then and there? If, like it's already in your hand and you've already decided you want it, then it's so easy.
Marcus
Emmy, is this something that young people, teens are going to be able to, are they going to be able to take social commerce mainstream? Because we've seen a couple people dabble with it. They've tried out, they do a few purchases, nothing too expensive. Do you think this generation who started to use it from such a young age are going to carry that through? Or is social commerce kind of always going to be left to the side, so to speak, in terms of there'll only be certain types of purchases for only certain amounts of money.
Emmy Liedeman
Yeah, I think that social commerce is going to completely be at the core of commerce because of these younger generations. I mean, about like the way that I shopped as a teenager. I am from New Jersey to preface, but a fun activity that we would do on the weekend is go to the Mall and malls are definitely like shuttering now and are just having a hard time keeping up with like the amazons and the TikTok shops of the world. And I do think that these younger generations, they value that like peer to peer commerce just as much, but they might not have a shared space where you have like access to all these different products and all these different stores. So I think that social commerce is really gonna, gonna be front and center because of younger generations. I remember when like TikTok shop first came out, I was like, is this safe? Like, is this okay? Are they gonna just like steal all my credit card information? People had those issues about TEMU and Shein as well for pow. Correct me if I'm wrong, but like for these like Gen Alpha and just teens in general, that's not really on their radar like that safety.
Paolo Pescatore
I mean, I wouldn't want to dismiss the idea that yes, there was, there have been a lot of scams and a lot of people do get swindled and all of that. But it's becoming an increasingly safe environment that by the time that these teens are fully able to make purchases of their own, if it's going to be something that's so standard for them. Right. And we're seeing a lot of larger labels, like luxury labels, like lean into these social spaces and making it easier to access. Where it once would have been unfathomable for me to spend like, I don't know, $500 on a coach purse that I bought off of Instagram. Like that's, that's, that's something I would never have considered 10 years ago. But if it's something that has been consistently reliable.
Marcus
Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
Due to all these different measures, then yeah, they wouldn't know any different. They don't. They will not know a world in which that has been something that is unsafe.
Marcus
Right. And they're spending a lot of money here. Now we have some numbers which suggest, believe it's this year TikTok shop people will spend more money, Americans more money on TikTok shop than Target online.
Emmy Liedeman
Yeah.
Marcus
More money from E Commerce TikTok Shop than Target will make from e Commerce in 2026. So it's, that's just absolutely shocking. Apparently you had a lot of data, Emmy, probably I think maybe you had some as well. Looking at, yes, teens buy things online, but in real life still matters. Tell us a bit about some of the things that jumped out to you there, pal. Start with you.
Paolo Pescatore
I mean, I think that the death of the third space is something that is constantly being talked about at the moment. And I think it's very real. I think going to the store and physically looking at an item and spending it gives you something to do. It gives you something to socialize in. It gives you the idea of like even just running errands with your friends. And so I, I don't think it's something that will ever truly go away. I think it'll continue to shift. But teens have a major desire for those third spaces that no longer exist. Like Emmy was saying, like the mall or in the case of my friends in high school, we used to just hang out on a little grassy patch in front of the 711 because until someone told us to leave and then those spaces are increasingly disappearing. Right. And so stores are one of the last places in which you can still, you can still sort of hang out.
Emmy Liedeman
And when I talk about like how I think social commerce is going to be front and center, I don't necessarily know if teens want this to be the case where like all they do is shop online, but as Pow said, it is just a necessity with this lack of third spaces. And I think one thing about teens is they seem to be very self aware in terms of the amount of time that they actually spend on social. So they're looking for people that can bring them outside of kind of that bubble and allow for them to be more social offline. So I think that the brands that can offer that sort of have a leg up with loyalty from being able to gain the loyalty of these generations.
Marcus
Yeah, there was some. You passed on some really interesting data from Quad's Return of touch report and 78 of Gen Z and Millennials, this includes millennials as well. But saying they appreciate when brands add digital touch points to enhance physical shopping rather than replace it. And a lot of conversation has been about, you know, I'm shopping over here, I'm shopping over there. And I like this idea of enhance the, the physical space. With digital, you don't have to swap it out entirely. They are online a lot and increasingly more and more. So how you have some research from Pew looking at teens and how increasingly more online they are, increasingly more. According to peer research, in 2025, 40% of 13 to 17 year olds were online almost constantly. That was 24% a decade ago. So from 24% to 40 of teens saying they are constantly online in the past decade that said this, I thought this stat was kind of heartbreaking, but also really telling. 73% of 12 to 15 year olds in this case, according to the Harris poll said they'd spend more time. Sorry, less time online if there were more friends to play with in their neighborhoods. So they're online, but a lot of them are online because their friends are online, not because they think it's better than the real world, necessarily.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah, it was something like 30% of Gen Alpha has never. Has never known a world without the pandemic or prior to the pandemic, something along those lines. And so obviously that's not a stat that necessarily applies to teens, but we are still talking about a large chunk that have grown up just being used to socializing with their peers in digital spaces. And while that's not. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that the world adapts in the way it needs to. There is, like, a lack of exposure to the way things used to be done and the benefits of being in shared social spaces. And we're also talking about generation that probably isn't going to experience that until they go to college, which means they're probably a little bit farther behind in their socialization skills and they're going to have to learn a lot of those social lessons when they're already kind of adults as opposed to teenagers.
Marcus
Yeah. Talking about social skills, what, Paolo, what does a teen's life on social media look like?
Paolo Pescatore
I mean, social. It's a lot of social. It's very impressive. It's multifunctional. Much of it is like TikTok and YouTube. Right. Like, TikTok wins in terms of time spent, but YouTube has the breadth. Like we're talking about. Over 90% of teens in the US use YouTube. And that's actually very high. I mean, that's consistently high across age groups and generations. YouTube tends to be the highest, the, the most used platform across groups because it's so accessible, but yet really cannot discount the amount of, like, time. The time suck that TikTok is for a lot of people.
Marcus
And TikTok is no more so than teens. Like, we have some research on time spent across. On TikTok across ages and teens. Is the most time spent of anyone. Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
Yes.
Marcus
By a few minutes.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah. Because I think it's like, TikTok is a form of entertainment and discovery and it's kind of when you look at the. I love tracking the life cycle of, like, memes and like, where did this originate and how. Where's our human humor coming from? And so Tick Tock has been the major source of Internet humor for, like, at least, like, the last five years, maybe more. Whereas before it was like 4chan or like. Or Twitter. Right. And so if you want to be current in Internet language and you want to be current in Internet culture, you have to be on TikTok, otherwise you're going to get reels that were. That are like three months old and. No. And you're going to be making jokes that are very outdated.
Emmy Liedeman
I thought this was an interesting kind of like, blog post from an agency called Allen and Garrettson. And it's just. It's talking about Gen Alpha specifically. But one of the subsections is just called the Rebellion against being Optimized. It talks a lot about how maybe older generations are used to being overbooked by their parents. They have travel, soccer, they get a tutor, they have all these sports that are going on, dance rehearsal, whatever it may be. And it just says Gen Alphas are rebelling against the constant optimization and management of their routines and identities. Even viral phrases like the intentionally meaningless 67 is a form of linguistic rebellion. And I just. I think that is why, like, social media is so precious to Gen Alpha. Like, you can just participate in things that, like, your parents and older generations aren't privy to. And it feels like it is that community aspect, which is every other generation had. But maybe it was, like, formed in person opposed to online. But online there's so much more opportunity to kind of, like, move in silence, whether that's positive or negative.
Paolo Pescatore
I think, actually, I think that speaks to Snapchat's continued popularity amongst teens. Right. Because the disappearing messages are one of the few outlets where they're not constantly being monitored by their parents. Right. Like their parents can't see something that isn't there anymore. And you can see Snapchat adoption drop once they get past the teen years, because there's no necessity to sort of hide it as much. They're not being monitored as closely.
Marcus
Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
Also, I also think it's super important. Like, I think we've talked about generations as if they're so radically different from one another, but they aren't. Right. Like, teens today are experiencing the same issues and the same concerns that teens 100 years ago were experiencing. Maybe not 100. Well, actually maybe 100.
Marcus
I don't know.
Paolo Pescatore
I still feel like the 90s was some. But yes, I think that the concerns are the same. Right. Like, do my peers like me? How am I coming off? Like, what do I need to do to get through school? Like, why my parents like me?
Marcus
Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
Yes. And so I think it's really important when we look at a lot of These habits to ask ourselves, like, what are, what is the life stage that these kids are in? And more importantly, where are they headed? Right. Because that's gonna. Where their future plans are gonna determine what the actions that they're taking. Now, although obviously teenagers are not very famous for long term, but they are sort of, I think by sort of focusing on these parallels, we can sort of identify how to reach them more efficiently.
Marcus
Yeah, yeah.
Emmy Liedeman
And I remember a few years ago, data came out about how Gen Alpha and maybe younger Gen Z, instead of taking a more traditional career path, so many people in that generation would aspire to be influencers and content creators. And people kind of like freaked out over that and was like, you know, our society is so damaged, whatever. But I see a lot of takes that were like, this is how these kids perceive community. And instead of just wanting to be famous, they might actually just be chasing, like having a strong community and having people around you that have a shared interest. And that's in a digital world. That's how that manifests.
Paolo Pescatore
And how different is that from teens in the 2000s who were like, I'm going to be a movie star, I'm going to be a basketball player. I'm going to be. If these are just pie in the sky, I mean, I think it's freaking people out because it's so radically different from like the careers that we've seen. Be a lister. I love talking about the A list, you know, I mean, that we've seen as like successful markers of success, but it's no different. I also think something I read yesterday that I thought was fascinating is like, not just considering what life stage these children are in, but also who's raising them. Right. So what are the values that are being passed down to them? And if we look at like those being raised by Gen Xers, like, think about who Gen Xers were in their 20s and what their philosophy philosophies look like. And so much of it was sort of like slacker 90s, corporate, anti corporate, all this other stuff. And so how is that playing out in younger generations who are also sort of rebelling against a lot of these expectations? Whereas, like, a lot of millennials were raised by boomers that had a much more different relationship with the economy and the expectation that work was going to pay off. And so I think it's really important to sort of look at it that way as well.
Marcus
Pau, how is gaming for this generation of teens different from previous ones, if at all?
Paolo Pescatore
Well, we see consistently a rise in the amount of, amount of gamers within each generation when we look at the forecast. So Gen Zers are currently, they currently have the highest rates of gaming amongst all the generations, although it is very high amongst Gen Alpha as well. It's one of the primary digital habits and I think part of that comes from as we were talking about the pandemic and digital social spaces, that these gaming spaces are another addition to that way of interacting and building community. Especially when you look at platforms like Discord that allow them to interact in real time. And that's how it started. Right. It started as a way for everybody to game together without having to pay additional fees in order to connect. And so I think they could be a massive boon as well. If more bans were to be implemented, I think we would see a lot of that activity that's currently on site social media move into like gaming spaces. But we'll, we'll see how that goes because there's also, I mean I think a lot of these gaming spaces are implementing like Discord are implementing identity verification methods in order to make their platform safer, but it's also creating a lot of turmoil among, among current users. And so while I do think we'll see that shift, I do think it's a question of whether or not it'll be through established platforms such as Discord. Right.
Marcus
Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
There might be an age split there where like older users will gravitate towards something that isn't constantly trying to monitor them. And whereas like younger users will feel probably. The parents of younger users will probably feel safer with them being on verified platforms.
Emmy Liedeman
It sounds like younger generations have this bit, this fatigue with social media and particularly like how it's become so riddled with advertisements and it sounds like maybe Discord and Roblox and some of these other platforms, they are, there are advertisements, but it's kind of more integrated into the game opposed to just like a very clear break.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah, I think there's like a desire for more. A better exchange of like not don't just show me something like give me something. Right. Give me something I can interact with or play with or a live event I can attend as opposed to just don't just throw something in my face every five seconds.
Marcus
Yeah.
Emmy Liedeman
I just wrote about how the Salvation army did a thrift store in Roblox and the brand just like recognized that Roblox was a space where a lot of kids were interested in. Like kids go there for self expression and like there is a desire to thrift beyond just the fact that it is like eco conscious. And cheap. Like people really consider it to be an outlet where they can like find something that's one of a kind. So I thought that was a good example of how like a thrift store works within a gaming universe. Like didn't quite make sense to me as like a non Roblox user. But it, it is an interesting example of like that is more of a chill ad format that is just like kind of subversive and like Coach had
Paolo Pescatore
a collab with Sims recently too where they like.
Marcus
Oh yes.
Paolo Pescatore
Which was really fascinating.
Marcus
Yeah. They used that example on reimagining retail. Yeah. The Coach bag that you could buy through Sims. These are all really great points around gaming and how this generation, this teenage generation are different from others and how they interact with gam. Really liked your point Paolo, about active play no longer a necessary agreement, necessary ingredient. Over three quarters of young people, of teens just watching other people play games and that is a lot different from previous generations. A lot of that obviously being on YouTube. Let's end with AI. Emmy, I'll start with you for this one. Anything stand out to you about teens
Emmy Liedeman
relationship with AI is a gender divide in terms of AI use. I think that young or gen alpha and just like teenagers, women are more likely to think about the ethical implications of using AI and especially like how it impacts art and creativity and might keep their distance a little more than young boys, but it definitely is reaching them at a young age to the point where I can't really imagine a world where they wouldn't be be using it to any degree.
Marcus
Paola, what. What jumps out to you about teens and AI at the moment?
Paolo Pescatore
I think for me one of the most interesting aspects. So it's that 80% of them believe they can detect an AI generated content according to teen voice, which I confident I think it's hubris is what I think it is.
Marcus
Yeah.
Paolo Pescatore
Which speaks very much to where teenagers are. Right. Everybody thinks they're going to live forever and everybody thinks they're smarter than everyone else. I know I certainly did. And so. And we're also talking but it's already such an integrated tool for many of them. I mean I think it was a test. A test found that 46% of teens ages 15 to 16 are using AI as a search engine and then 44% use it for help with schoolwork or studying. And so it's just so it's also, it's not instinctive but it is already becoming such a, such a go to in the way that I think when I was in College like Wikipedia was becoming a go to, right? And like the Internet was becoming something that was so reliable and so much easier. And I felt like it was so instinctive to me that whenever the people were like, how do you do that? Or when older people were like, how do you do that? I'm like, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Like, why wouldn't I do it?
Marcus
It's so easy. I was surprised that number, I thought that would be higher though. Now this is people admitting. This is teenagers admitting to AI for homework. But you know, as a search engine, maybe it's more acceptable. But I thought that that number, like every teen would have been using it. So those numbers were high, but I did expect them to be a bit higher.
Emmy Liedeman
It seems like Gen Alpha is less amused by AI. Like they don't see it as this, like whimsical. Interesting that older generations do. Like when I think about how boomers use AI, it's like constant image generation. I mean, I'm just thinking about what my dad sends me on the daily. But it's just a lot of maybe boomers and like Gen Xers and stuff. They're more like, wow, look at this, like shiny new tool. And younger generations are like, yeah, of course I'm going to use this to help me with my homework and I'm not going to do it with like a huge smile on my face. It's just kind of like it exists.
Marcus
It's the tool of the moment.
Paolo Pescatore
I do think it's fascinating that I feel like younger generations, while they are more aware of the ethical concerns and they are plugged into the conversations happening, there's less fear mongering, I think among them about the future of AI because they have a better understanding of how it works. And so whereas like older generations, like pie in the sky sort of ideas of like what, how AI could destroy the like social fabric of our universe.
Marcus
And yeah, because teenagers haven't seen IROBOT yet, but they will terminate or any
Paolo Pescatore
mandatory Terminator watches in all the school. Okay, this is my college, Donnie, give me a call, we can work. Yeah, I just think it speaks to like just how, how easily younger generations tend to pick this up.
Marcus
Yeah. And if they are using it, pal, this in your report as well from Pew Research. If they are using AI, it's chatgpt by a country mile Gemini meta AI copilot way, way behind in terms of usage among teens in the US and
Paolo Pescatore
they're using it for social support, which I also thought was fascinating. A third of teens use AI companions for social or relational purposes.
Marcus
Is that as a friend or as a therapist? Would that include both?
Paolo Pescatore
It's like some sort of emotional support where it's like, this is the situation I'm experiencing with my friend or with so and so. And like, what do you do?
Marcus
I don't deal with it. Wow. Yeah.
Emmy Liedeman
Which is dangerous because no one should have a therapist that gives into their every thought.
Paolo Pescatore
Yeah.
Emmy Liedeman
And that is ChatGPT. So that'll be.
Marcus
Well, Powers full report. It's called US Teen Digital Habits 2026. We covered some of it. There's tons more in there. Link in the show notes or you can head to emarks.com if you're a Pro Pro plus subscriber. But that's what we have time for. Talking about teens today. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you. First to Paola.
Paolo Pescatore
Thank you, Marcus.
Marcus
Yes, of course. And then to Emmy.
Emmy Liedeman
Thank you.
Marcus
Yes, indeed. Thank you to the whole production crew, but mainly Lance because he's the only one here. Thanks to everyone for listening into behind the noise and e marketed podcast made possible by ROKT. Watch upcoming episodes of our video podcast on YouTube, Spotify and this spring on Apple podcasts. Susie will be here with reimagining retail show on Wednesday talking all about Starbucks and loyalty.
Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Episode: Growing Up “Constantly Online”: What Teens’ Online Lives Really Look Like
Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Marcus
Guests: Paolo Pescatore (Demographics Analyst), Emmy Liedeman (Analyst)
This episode dives deep into the digital lives of today’s teenagers (ages 12 to 17), exploring how their “always online” existence is shaping their habits, preferences, and social worlds. The discussion spans device usage, social commerce, shifts in socialization, attitudes toward AI, and unique platform preferences. The analysts blend data, personal insights, and cultural context to decode what’s genuinely new about teen behavior—and what’s timeless.
On instinctual digital life:
On the changing nature of shopping:
On social commerce’s future:
On loss of third spaces:
On the heartbreak of constant connectivity:
On being present in meme culture:
On differential attitudes toward AI:
On AI’s emotional role:
The discussion is data-driven but accessible, blending personal anecdotes and expert interpretation. Humor and warmth (e.g., reminiscing about malls, self-deprecating jokes about generational quirks) keep things lively and relatable. There’s an undertone of empathy and curiosity about “what’s old, what’s new,” and what remains universal about teen experience.
This episode is essential listening for marketers, educators, or anyone interested in the shaping forces of the next generation’s digital lives—balancing what’s changing, what’s constant, and why.