Half of US Adults get their news from social media

[JoelR]

Newsflash: Half of US adults are getting their news, at least sometimes, from social media, according to a new study of American news consumption habits from the Pew Research Center.

Which social media, to be exact? According to the research, which surveyed 8,842 US adults between Sept. 25 and Oct. 1, Facebook—which has steadily deprioritized news content—is king, with three in 10 respondents saying they regularly get news from the platform. YouTube was also a major source for news, with around a quarter (26%) of respondents stating they regularly get news from the site. Instagram was next with 16%, while 14% of respondents said they regularly get news from TikTok.

While the number of Americans getting news from TikTok remains a small percentage, its popularity as a news source among its user base is growing.

• Among users of the app, more than four in 10 (43%) reported regularly getting news from TikTok, Elisa Shearer, a senior researcher at Pew, told Marketing Brew.
• That’s in line with the percentage of Facebook users who reported regularly getting news from the platform, and is 10 percentage points lower than X (formerly Twitter), where 53% of users reported regularly getting news from the app.

“When we first asked this question in 2020, about 20% of TikTok users got news there regularly,” Shearer explained. “This year, that almost doubled to 43%.”

Inspired by Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/

[Maria]

One of the reasons why fake news is circulating is because a lot of people are consuming news from social media. They tend to believe whatever they get to read via social sites. While social sites are good platforms to discover content, including news, it is also important to see the original creator of news. You should never go after stories published by every Tom, Dick, and Hary. You only need to believe in news published by reputed news media.

[Shortie]

This is not surprising. There is so much fake news going around and with how much time the average person spends on the internet these days, a lot of the news can be taken in regardless of whether it is confirmed news or rumours. 

More needs to be done to push the word out there that news from confirmed trustworthy providers should be the only news to take into account. 

 

[Destiny]

I can't say I am shocked by this news. The amount of people who rely on social media to keep up with the latest news is shockingly high and it's been proven that a lot of news that is not confirmed is posted on these platforms. 

I would love to see more put in place to allow people who read their news on social media to let them know that what they are reading is possibly fake news, it's a shame that is not something that is used more. 

[Nomad]

Social media content is user generated content. There is no mechanism to fact check whether content shared on social media is genuine or not. Some social media platforms claim that they have moderators to check facts, but we all know even if they have someone to check facts, they must be lacking in manpower. A lot of people rely on social media for news because it can give you easy access and for free, however, relying on social media for news can be dangerous because we don't know the truthfulness of the content.

[Toni]

This is something that does not shock me at all and I believe that is why many use the phrase fake news as much as they do on social media. 

Social media is used so widely now by just about everyone around the world and it has become one of the popular ways to get your latest news updates. 

News posted on social media is not fact-checked in the way most social media platforms say it is and therefore, fake news and news that is not correct but can seem believable always has that chance to get through and then it circulates. 

[Nomad]

On 4/27/2024 at 1:19 AM, Toni said:

This is something that does not shock me at all and I believe that is why many use the phrase fake news as much as they do on social media. 

Social media is used so widely now by just about everyone around the world and it has become one of the popular ways to get your latest news updates. 

News posted on social media is not fact-checked in the way most social media platforms say it is and therefore, fake news and news that is not correct but can seem believable always has that chance to get through and then it circulates. 

The most important think is to check the source. If the link is from reputed media companies like The New York Times, CNN, BBC, etc. you can trust the news. These days it is very common for media company to use social sites to distribute news.