Survey Says Over Half Of Gen Z Tried To Quit This One Common Habit In 2025
CarlosBarquero | Shutterstock The dawn of the new year is a time to not only look forward to the year ahead and plan what resolutions you want to focus on, but also a time to look back at the year before and consider what goals you had and whether you achieved them.
The whole point of New Year’s resolutions is to make yourself and your life better in some way. It’s interesting to note how goals differ across different generations. It seems like different age groups definitely have their sights set on varying goals that are important to them. In 2025, Gen Z picked out a particular goal that might surprise you.
A survey found that 52% of Gen Z tried to quit using social media in 2025.
Check My Insurance, a company that helps people compare insurance plans and determine what their plan covers, conducted a survey on 1,000 American adults to determine what New Year’s resolutions they set out to achieve in 2025, and what their goals were for 2026. As part of the survey, they asked what habits the participants tried to quit in 2025. The most common answer was sugar at 46%.
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If you look at the stats for specific generations, though, you’ll see that 52% of Gen Z attempted to quit using social media in 2025. That’s compared to just 33% of overall respondents who said they were trying to quit their doomscrolling habits. This is particularly intriguing considering Gen Z was really the first generation to grow up in a fully digitized world. They’re known for using social media frequently, and most people just assume they enjoy doing so.
Gen Z’s top motivation for trying to quit the bad habit was mental health. This makes sense as social media usage is so closely linked to poor mental health. UC-Davis Health noted that spending time on social media can increase your risk for “anxiety, depression, loneliness, and FOMO.” Social media can also cause your brain to release dopamine, which is what leads to it being addictive in some cases.
Social media is a very prominent part of Gen Z’s lives.
Sprout Social’s Q1 2024 Sprout Pulse Survey found that, “Compared to other generations, Gen Z is most likely to use social [media] for discovering new products, keeping up with the news, and reaching out to brands with customer care needs.” Over 80% of Gen Z use Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
According to data from The Harris Poll, 60% of the Gen Zers they surveyed said they spent a minimum of four hours on social media daily. Forty-seven percent said they used it for two to four hours a day, and 22% said they spent a whopping seven hours or more on it each day.
Despite how pervasive social media use is among Gen Z, it seems like they are not entirely happy with it.
The Harris Poll found that a majority of Gen Z, 49%, said they were happy with the amount of time they currently spend on social media. However, 32% said they wanted to engage with social media less than they do at present.
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It sounds like quitting social media didn’t go quite as well as Gen Z might have hoped, though. The Check My Insurance survey found that most of Gen Z (46%) said they “started strong but fell off” with their habit changes. And, interestingly, “limiting screen time or doing digital detoxes” was only the fifth-highest goal Gen Z chose for 2026 at 42%.
Clearly, Gen Z, the generation that grew up alongside emerging social media platforms, is not entirely comfortable with their widespread use of social media. It also looks like they are at a bit of an impasse, though, and don’t really know what to do about it. At least they are starting to take some action to fight back against something that they feel is affecting their lives negatively.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
