According to a survey by Binulabs Insight on the Everytime platform, even after KakaoTalk revamped its friends tab, Gen Z university students continue to use KakaoTalk as their primary messaging app. From November 3rd to 9th, a survey of 210 university students revealed that 82.4% primarily use KakaoTalk. Instagram Direct Messages are used by 13.3%, and Discord by 2.4%.
The survey also asked about students’ perceptions of the KakaoTalk update. Among the respondents, 83.3% had updated their app, while 16.7% had not. When asked about their views on the update, 81.9% said it had become more inconvenient, compared to 14.8% who felt it was similar, and 3.3% who thought it had improved.
The main reason for finding it inconvenient (multiple responses allowed) was confusion due to the friends list being feed-centered (70.9%). Other reasons included the app feeling more like a social networking service (68%), difficulty finding necessary functions (64%), unwanted people frequently appearing on the home tab (63.4%), and an increase in advertisements causing fatigue (59.3%).
After the update, 62.4% felt more negatively toward KakaoTalk, which is higher than the combined percentages of those who felt it remained the same (35.2%) or improved (2.4%).
In terms of usage time after the update, 57.1% reported it was similar, but 39% said they used it less. Despite the inconvenience, when asked about switching to another messaging service, 51.9% had briefly considered it but did not switch, and 27.6% had never considered it.
A Binulabs Insight representative noted that although KakaoTalk remains the primary messenger for university students, over half (55.7%) showed interest in potentially using other messengers in the future. The emotional distance revealed by the update could influence brand trust and usage patterns in the long term.