U.S. usage habits · 2024 evidence
Who reports never visiting social media?
A survey can measure no visits over a defined period. That leaves account ownership and quitting as separate questions.
of U.S. adults selected “Never” when asked how often they visited a social-media site during the past 12 months in NCI's 2024 HINTS survey.
United States · Civilian noninstitutionalized adults aged 18+ · People · Missing frequency answers retained in denominator
Source: National Cancer Institute, HINTS 7 public codebook, PDF p80 (printed p79), SocMed_Visited / B12a, response 5. Fieldwork March 25–September 16, 2024. Source percentage; Social Usage sampling SE 0.56 percentage points. No NCI endorsement implied.
The national estimate includes all 7,278 participants in its denominator. The 95 missing or invalid frequency answers—1.1% weighted—are not counted as “Never.” This is not a count of people without social-media accounts.
How does reported nonuse differ by age?
Among the age groups we can report, the estimated share selecting “Never” ranges from 5.3% for ages 35-49 to 43.2% for ages 75+. These are Social Usage calculations within each recorded age band, using the same question and survey.
Social Usage analysis of NCI HINTS 7 public-use data, response 5 of SocMed_Visited within AgeGrpB. U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized adults with recorded age; 2024 fieldwork and past-12-month recall. Age categories: codebook PDF p524 (printed p523), History Document p2.
Weighted percent within each recorded age band; missing frequency answers retained.
18–34 years: withheld. The response cell is below our minimum count. A withheld estimate is not zero.
Source: NCI HINTS 7 (2024), August 2025 public-use package. Original Social Usage analysis, no NCI endorsement. Estimates carry sampling uncertainty; open the data and standard errors.
Missing age matters. 613 participants (7.3% of the weighted full sample) have no usable age category. They remain in the national result but are excluded from the age breakdown. No additional age-nonresponse adjustment was made, so these estimates may be biased if missing age is related to visiting habits.
View age estimates, standard errors and sample sizes
| Age (years) | Weighted % | SE (pp) | Relative SE (%) | Group n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-34 | Withheld: minimum cell count; not zero | |||
| 35-49 | 5.3 | 0.86 | 16.17 | 1,355 |
| 50-64 | 10.6 | 0.98 | 9.32 | 1,728 |
| 65-74 | 23.6 | 1.78 | 7.55 | 1,466 |
| 75+ | 43.2 | 3.10 | 7.17 | 1,036 |
Group n is the unweighted domain size, including missing/invalid frequency answers. Weighted shares are not raw counts divided by n. SE is a sampling standard error in percentage points (pp), not a 95% margin of error. Relative SE is 100 × SE ÷ estimate. Both age percentages and errors are Social Usage calculations using NCI weights; no confidence interval or significance test is reported.
Exact variable definitions: HINTS public-use package, codebook PDF pp80 and 524; History pp2, 8, 14. JK1 method: Methodology Report §5.5 and Analysis Recommendations pp9/31. Suppression rules are described below.
The published estimates increase across these four successively older bands. This is a descriptive cross-sectional pattern, not proof that aging causes nonuse or that any pair differs statistically. The unreported youngest group must not be assigned a value or ranked.
Four different meanings of “not using social media”
The question asks about visits, over a particular recall period. Keep that definition when interpreting the number.
Does “Never” mean never used social media in their life?
No. The question starts “In the past 12 months.” An answer of “Never” describes that window, not a person's entire history. It does not identify lifetime abstainers.
Does it mean they have no social-media accounts?
Account ownership is not measured by this item. It does not ask whether an account exists, has been deleted or is inactive. Use the number for reported visits, not account status.
How many people have quit or taken a break?
This evidence does not establish a quitting or break-taking rate. It does not identify earlier use, a decision to stop, when a break began or whether use resumed. Those questions need their own direct measures; subtracting this percentage from a platform's adoption figure would not supply them.
Is “Never” everyone outside the frequent-user group?
No. “Almost everyday,” “At least once a week,” “A few times a month,” “Less than once a month” and “Never” are separate answer choices, with missing answers retained separately. Everyone outside one category is not automatically in another. See the frequency guide and full national distribution.
How to read and cite these estimates
Use “selected Never for social-media visits in the past 12 months,” followed by the population and 2024 fieldwork period. Preserve the distinction between NCI's national percentage and the Social Usage age analysis. The survey does not supply a current live count, reasons for nonuse or named-platform nonuse rates.
Survey, calculation and reporting safeguards
HINTS uses an address-based probability sample of U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized adults, selecting one adult by the next-birthday method. Paper and web responses are weighted for selection, nonresponse and population calibration. Fieldwork ran March 25–September 16, 2024.
Each age estimate divides the sum of final person weights for response 5 by the sum for everyone assigned to that age band. Frequency missing codes −9, −7 and −5 remain in the denominator. Unknown-age codes −9, −7 and −4 are excluded from age domains; no age is imputed.
For each of 50 replicate weights, we recompute both the age-domain numerator and denominator. SE is the square root of 0.98 × the sum of squared differences from the full-weight estimate. Standard errors do not capture all recall, coverage or nonresponse error.
Our reporting screen requires domain n ≥ 100, selected and complement n ≥ 50, and relative SE ≤ 30%. These are Social Usage choices, not NCI thresholds or a guarantee against bias. The youngest band's response count fails the cell screen; no estimate, count or replicate inputs for that cell are distributed. We do not merge age bands to fill the gap.
Source dates, review and reuse
Data period: 2024. Public-use package updated August 2025; exact release day unknown. Original statistical retrieval: October 1, 2026. National source version: hints7-2024-v2; new age-analysis assisted review: 2026-10-07. The original national archive is unchanged.
We reused official NCI public-use and reuse guidance checked earlier on October 7 for this separately scoped aggregate analysis. No independent human editorial approval or agency endorsement is claimed. No respondent records, source artwork or controlled-access data are republished.
This guide offers a citation but no CSV, image-export or embed distribution. The national dataset has its own reviewed permissions. HINTS use guidance · NCI reuse policy.