The manner in which people end up getting updates about the events that are going on in the world around them has changed dramatically over the course of the past few decades. YouGov recently conducted a survey that shed some light on the latest trends that are taking over the world of social media, and one of the least surprising things it revealed was that social media news consumption is one the rise.
18% of people are using social media to get the news, up from 12% in 2019, and the share for TV news has plummeted from 31% to 25% in the same time period. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there are a number of other interesting pieces of information revealed by this survey.
46% of Americans said that they now spend an excess of 6 hours per day on social media, and for people between the ages of 18 and 24, 60% said the same. Surprisingly, Facebook continues to have enormous pull across all generations, but older people are more likely to use it than might have been the case otherwise. 68% of all users said that they used it, but the proportion for 18 to 24 was just 51%.
That’s lower than YouTube, which is used by 63% of people in this age bracket, but it’s also a lot higher than what other social media platforms managed. Facebook has more users than any other platform, so it stands to reason that it will have a higher proportion of users as well, but TikTok is certainly giving it a run for its money. While just 26% of people said that they use TikTok, the proportion for 18 to 24 was 41%, just ten points behind Facebook.
Over in the world of instant messaging, WhatsApp saw its user base grow by 9% in the past two years. Its privacy features are making it a popular option for users, and it will be interesting to see how much it continues to grow over the subsequent decade.
Image: AI-gen
Read next: Beware! Saying "You're So Smart!" to Children Can Make Them Worse at Math
18% of people are using social media to get the news, up from 12% in 2019, and the share for TV news has plummeted from 31% to 25% in the same time period. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that there are a number of other interesting pieces of information revealed by this survey.
46% of Americans said that they now spend an excess of 6 hours per day on social media, and for people between the ages of 18 and 24, 60% said the same. Surprisingly, Facebook continues to have enormous pull across all generations, but older people are more likely to use it than might have been the case otherwise. 68% of all users said that they used it, but the proportion for 18 to 24 was just 51%.
That’s lower than YouTube, which is used by 63% of people in this age bracket, but it’s also a lot higher than what other social media platforms managed. Facebook has more users than any other platform, so it stands to reason that it will have a higher proportion of users as well, but TikTok is certainly giving it a run for its money. While just 26% of people said that they use TikTok, the proportion for 18 to 24 was 41%, just ten points behind Facebook.
Over in the world of instant messaging, WhatsApp saw its user base grow by 9% in the past two years. Its privacy features are making it a popular option for users, and it will be interesting to see how much it continues to grow over the subsequent decade.
Image: AI-gen
Read next: Beware! Saying "You're So Smart!" to Children Can Make Them Worse at Math
