Social media and news consumption

Social media plays a critical role in news consumption. Half of American adults now get their news from social media at times. Analysis of News Consumption on Social Media

According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of U.S. adults (31%) say they get news from Facebook regularly. A quarter of U.S. adults regularly get news from YouTube, while smaller percentages get news from Twitter (14%), Instagram (13%), TikTok (10%) or Reddit (8%). Even fewer Americans regularly get their news from LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), Nextdoor (4%), WhatsApp (3%) or Twitch (1%).

When looking at the percentage of users who regularly get news on each social media site, some sites stand out because more users turn to that site for news, even if their total audience is relatively small. For example, while about three-in-ten (27%) U.S. adults use Twitter, about half (53%) of users turn to the site for regular news. On the other hand, roughly the same percentage of adults (31%) use LinkedIn, but only 13% of users get news on the site regularly.

Analysis of who consumes news on social media

According to the survey, adults under the age of 30 make up the largest percentage of people who regularly get news on the site. For example, half or more of regular news consumers on Snapchat (67%), TikTok (52%) and Reddit (50%) are between the ages of 18 and 29. In addition, women make up a larger share of regular news consumers on Facebook, while the opposite is true for sites like Twitter and Reddit.

There are also some partisan divides when it comes to who regularly gets their news on certain social media sites. The majority of regular news consumers on many sites are Democrats or lean Democrat. None of the social media sites included here have regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republicans or lean Republican.