How often do you use 'nowadays' vs 'these days' in your dialect?

Question

I would say that in South Africa, nowadays is rather quaint; something that perhaps Boomers and older or second language speakers would use. Unfortunately, I cautioned a student nearly a year ago against using it for this reason and I'm now doubting my advice.

Anecdotal confirmation from my career English teaching Boomer mother is that nowadays has fallen out of use in South Africa and googling "south africa" nowadays returns zero results including nowadays being used explicitly with the synonym today being substituted in the results. Saffers would probably use either these days or today in that order of preference instead of nowadays.

So my question is, how prevalent is nowadays amongst Yanks, Brits, Canucks, Aussies, and Kiwis? I'm seeing it all over the internet now because my attention is on it and it makes me cringe that I perhaps gave the wrong advice.

Answer 1

Ngram shows "nowadays" and "these days" are about equal in British English, while "nowadays" is about half as common as "these days" in American English.

I am American, and I would not say that "nowadays" is quaint.

Answer 2

As a British native from Northern England, I don't find "nowadays" at all quaint or antiquated. Clearly, Americans and Saffers have a different feel.

I've learned three new words today: Saffer, spondee, anapest.