Tokyo University of Technology Survey: Over 90% of 2026 Freshmen Use Generative AI as Instagram and TikTok Continue to Grow

Tokyo University of Technology in Hachioji, Tokyo, led by President Yutaka Kagawa, conducted a survey of its 2026 incoming students on their use of social media and communication tools. The survey was conducted in April 2026 with 1,682 respondents and a gender ratio of roughly 54 to 46. The university has conducted this survey since 2014, making this the 13th edition. LINE remained the most widely used social networking service, with a usage rate of 99.1%, holding the top position for 13 consecutive years since 2014. Instagram reached 86.0%, marking its 11th straight year of growth, and widened its lead over third-ranked X, formerly Twitter, which fell to 77.0%, to 9 percentage points. Among women, Instagram reached 94.6%, approaching LINE’s 99.0%. Among men, Instagram rose to 78.6%, surpassing X at 76.4% for the first time to become the second most-used SNS among male students. TikTok rose to 54.3%, its seventh consecutive year of growth. Usage reached 70.3% among women and increased sharply to 40.6% among men. BeReal. recorded the highest growth rate among SNS platforms, rising 7.0 percentage points to 41.4%. It reached 54.7% among women and 30.1% among men. Previous surveys show that SNS platforms popular among women tend to continue expanding, making future trends worth watching. For everyday communication, LINE remained the standard at 98.5%. Instagram DMs continued to expand, rising to 55.1%. Among women, Instagram DM usage reached about 69.5%, roughly 1.6 times the rate among men. Discord ranked third at 23.0%, maintaining a low-20% range for four consecutive years; male usage was about 2.5 times that of female students. The survey asked about generative AI use for the first time. ChatGPT ranked first at 80.8%, followed by Gemini at 38.8%, far ahead of other services. ChatGPT usage was higher among women, at 86.5%, which is 10.6 percentage points above men. For Gemini and other generative AI tools, men tended to show higher usage rates than women. Overall, more than 90% of students reported using at least one generative AI service. For video streaming services, YouTube stood at 97.6%, remaining above 95% every year since 2019. Amazon Prime Video ranked second at 48.0%, while Netflix surged by 16.9 percentage points to 45.8%, its largest increase to date, with usage among women approaching half at 48.8%. TVer, traditionally popular among women, rose to 32.3%; among women it reached 47.9%, about 2.5 times the rate among men. One in four students, or 26.4%, had contacted other incoming students via SNS or similar tools before enrollment. This figure had been declining since peaking at 51% in 2020, but rose slightly for the first time in six years. In electronic money usage, PayPay reached about 80%, at 79.6%, becoming the top service for the first time. Since the university began asking about electronic money in 2022, PayPay has grown 2.6-fold in four years, a notably larger expansion than other services. Meanwhile, transit-based e-money services such as Suica and PASMO remained nearly flat at 78.5%. Survey overview: The survey was conducted from April 2 to April 22, 2026. Respondents were 2026 incoming students across six faculties at the Hachioji and Kamata campuses of Tokyo University of Technology. The sample size was 1,682, with a response rate of 89.6% and a gender ratio of 53.8% to 46.2%. The survey was conducted online via Moodle. From 2014 to 2019, it was conducted through in-person written responses. Tokyo University of Technology was opened in Hachioji, Tokyo, in 1986 by Katayanagi Institute, whose predecessor Sobi Gakuen was founded in Ota, Tokyo, in 1947. The university began as a single-faculty engineering institution and established Japan’s first School of Media Science in 1999. It later added schools including applied bioscience, computer science, design, health sciences, and engineering. Today it is a comprehensive science and technology university with six faculties and a graduate school, enrolling about 8,000 students. The same educational corporation also operates Nihon Kogakuin, one of Japan’s largest comprehensive vocational schools.