Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. adults are part of an online community, Pew finds

Nearly four in ten U.S. adults say they are part of an online community, and the share rises to 48% among adults ages 18 to 29, according to a Pew Research Center report published on October 14, 2026. The survey of 9,750 adults was conducted from May 26 to June 1, 2026, as part of the Pew-Knight Initiative.

Pew used a broad definition. It asked about “people connecting with others online, such as by joining or feeling part of a group or doing things together,” whether on social media, discussion forums, group email or messaging, or in online video games. The Center also studied online communities in 2001, more than two decades ago.

Where communities form

Social media is the most common place: about a quarter of Americans are part of an online community on social media sites or apps. Discussion forums come next, with 15% in communities on services such as Reddit, Nextdoor or Discord. Fewer find community on video sites like YouTube and Twitch, in online games or in messaging apps, and 5% do so on hobby sites such as Goodreads, Strava, Ravelry or Letterboxd.

Hobbies and local areas are the most common subjects, each named by about one in five Americans. Roughly one in ten are in communities about movies, books or TV shows, about video games or about their work, and a similar share are in fan communities. Communities about politics reach 8% of adults.

Gaming shows one of the widest age gaps in the survey. Younger adults are more likely than every other age group to be in several kinds of community, including those about video games, beauty or fashion, movies, books or TV shows, hobbies and fandoms.

How people use them

Members tend to be active. Of those in an online community, 85% belong to more than one, 74% say they post or share in the one they visit most, and 56% visit it every day, which Pew says works out to one in five U.S. adults. Most members, 68%, knew very few or none of the other people there before joining, and about a third say their main community also meets in person.

People mostly go for information, fun and advice: about eight in ten or more cite each as a reason. Just over half say they go because they feel accepted, and Pew found that meeting people is “fairly low on the list of motivators.” About one in five members feel extremely or very close to others in their main community, while nearly half do not feel very close.

Politics, and why people leave

Politics is mostly absent from these spaces, and most members want it that way. In all, 71% see little to no political content in the community they visit most, and 54% say political discussion does not belong there. A quarter say it does, and 21% are not sure.

About a third of U.S. adults have left an online community at some point. Losing interest is the most common reason, cited by more than eight in ten of those who left. Among those who left, 57% cited too much arguing, 44% too much politics, 43% harassment and 37% spending too much time there.

What it says about online connection

Americans remain skeptical about relationships formed online. About half say they are not as meaningful as in-person ones, and 34% say they can be just as meaningful. Adults under 30 are the only age group in which more people say online relationships can match in-person ones, at 54%, compared with 14% of those 65 and older. Asked about the internet in general, 31% say it tends to drive people apart, 11% say it brings them together and 58% say it does both about equally.

The findings come from Wave 194 of Pew's American Trends Panel. The survey-level response rate was 87%, and the margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.4 percentage points. The Pew-Knight Initiative is funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.