Over the past decades, social media has reshaped how individuals, especially younger generations, communicate, express identity, and engage with the world around them. In this context, our research aims to present a detailed map of the practices and uses that young people attribute to social media platforms. Drawing from an ethnographic study with adolescents aged 14-18 from diverse educational centres in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, we identify how young people navigate and inhabit a wide range of digital environments. The resulting map encompasses 13 platforms and reveals not only the variety of uses and practices but also the differentiated meanings and functions that each platform acquires in young people's everyday lives. Crucially, these results serve as an analytical model: it delineates three strata of platforms -those that reconfigure classical receptive uses (televisual and radiophonic), those oriented towards productive uses, and those operating primarily as social spaces. Instagram emerges as a central node, encompassing and influencing virtually all aspects of young people's digital lives; however, rather than a homogeneous or linear adoption of digital tools, what emerges is a layered and strategic landscape of uses. This calls for more situated and interpretive methodological approaches to understand the evolving dynamics of youth and social media.
