Australian Media Uses Report: Social media and YouTube, 2026

The Australian Media Uses Report presents data collected in a multi-year investigation of how Australians use media. This paper explores social media and YouTube use as well as the importance of internet access to media consumption generally. This report includes results from a survey whose participants (n=2020) represent the Australian population and insights from 70 hour-long interviews with Australians about their media use.

Our investigation explores Australians’ use of different social media features – the different ways to use social media services such as messaging, search, or feeds of followed or recommended posts or videos – and what they like about them. Our questions about YouTube explore what types of content are most watched and valued, and our inquiry about internet access identifies its role in media use and its reliability.