Tick-ing news
O Americans are increasingly turning to TikTok for news
AMERICANS are no longer just heading to TikTok for dancing. The Chinese app has even made its way into the world of information and media. In the United States, more users now go on TikTok than on any other platform.
TikTok is once again making a mark in the United States. A growing number of Americans are logging on to the
Chinese social network to keep up with the news. While the numbers remain low, the percentage of these users has tripled in two years, rising from 3% in 2020 to 10% in 2022, according to the results of a study conducted by Pew Research. More than 12,000 users were surveyed between July 18 and August 21, 2022. It’s a
trend that’s also been observed in the United Kingdom.
In fact, TikTok is one of the few apps where this new trend is growing on its platform. The percentage of adults regularly getting
news on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, LinkedIn and even WhatsApp has been declining. Only WhatsApp experienced an uptick in 2021 compared to 2020, from 13% to 14%, before dropping to 10% by 2022. Meanwhile YouTube and Twitch stagnated at 30% and 13% respectively. Only Instagram has seen this trend grow among its users, rising from 27% in 2021 to 29% in 2022.
While TikTok has shown more growth, the social network is still far behind Facebook, Twitter and even Reddit.
Generational differences
Adults under 30 are the most likely to get information from TikTok. In this age group, a quarter (26%) of them use the app as a regular source of news. A number that exceeds 2021 and 2020 levels, which at those times stood at 29% and 22% respectively.
While not surprising, the generational differences are striking. If the younger generation is more likely to get information on TikTok, the percentage decreases more and more with age. Only 10% of 30-49 year olds, 4% of 50-64 year olds and 1% of those over 65 use the social network to keep up to date on current events,
Access to news via TikTok may raise other issues in the run-up to the US mid-term elections. While Americans get more and more of their news on the social network, misinformation and disinformation, are also still present on TikTok and Facebook.
Google already highlighted the new forms of behavior of internet users, who are more likely to use TikTok and Instagram compared to Google for discovery searches.