Most people between the ages of 10-30 have been conditioned to pull out their phone during the slightest feeling of boredom, awkwardness, loneliness, or of course notification noise / buzz. It then becomes a question of which App gets opened first which usually is decided by the amount of 'reward' generated by the action.

I can only speak to my demo, but the order is usually:

Tier 1:

* Text messaging

* Snapchat

Tier 1.5:

* Tinder

* Mobile games (only applies to a subset of users 'gamers')

Tier 2:

* Facebook

* Instagram

Tier 3:

* Browser

* Mobile games (most people)

* Other

You'll notice personal communications falls above content sharing. Snapchat is a definitive type of personal communication and is pretty firmly planted (IMO).

If I pull out my phone I go right to HN, or the current book I'm reading. I'm definitely old now...

Same here. In a sense HN is a sort of restricted social network for me, or even a tribe if you wish.

Except we don't gather around the fire anymore, we gather around a website and exchange stories not of hunting animals, but hunting bugs.

I'm still fairly new to HN but I love the quality of posts and expertise in almost every technical thread.

I think 27 is old for HN, so I'm right there with ya. The tinder and snapchat generation blew right by me. I still use twitter and instagram, but I don't immediately reach for them. I typically go to HN, an article, or another piece of reading material when I'm bored.

Oh no; 27 can't be old. I can't be old D: 27 isn't old!

Given majority of people exit their companies and retire by 30 - 35 these days, 27 is becoming quite old in the HN workforce.

"Majority" hmmm...

Haha I'm 28, from the doom and gloom I read on HN about age discrimination I should be entering retirement! :(

Me too.

I'd put Imgur and Reddit in tier 1

Do people just browse Imgur or what is there to do? I've never gone to the site other than to upload or through a link (mostly from Reddit).

Yes you just browse it. It has public posts and comments. Most of the popular images become popular on Imgur first, then they make their way to Reddit.

Yes, it has it's own discussion/community separate from Reddit. It mainly serves as a source/aggregate for Reddit image content.

Based on Snap's own numbers it would indicate Instagram is a tier 1.

His demo is likely younger, and thus uses Snapchat more frequently than instagram

Seems like Snapchat is growing faster though

Not really.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/02/slowchat/

One of the benefits of publicly traded and soon-to-be-traded companies is that they release things like DAU in their S-1s and quarterly reports, so we don't have to rely on anecdote.

Disclaimer: I work at Facebook (but don't follow this sort of thing beyond reading the quarterly reports every once in a while)

I thought it was for sexting..?

Everything is for sexting.

Touché.

I assume Snapchat has a Disney-esque size valuation around $176B. All these social networks morph into media companies and Disney is a good fit because it caters primarily to the youth.