Technology Blog

TikTok is a source of daily news? Research confirms it.

Divyajyot (DJ) Verma

A recent Pew Research Center Study, which looked into Americans’ use of various social media platforms for news consumption, confirmed that 33% of TikTok users now regularly receive updates about daily news on the social video app. Interestingly, these numbers for TikTok are up from 22% last year compared to every other social media site, which saw a decline across that same metric. For instance, Facebook has seen a decent drop from 54% just two years ago to now only 44% of its users reporting that they regularly get their news there.


Image Credits: Pew Research

Data from research now suggests that TikTok has grown from an entertainment platform carrying short-clip videos of lip-syncing, dances and comedy to a broad-based awareness platform where many of its users learn about what is trending in their world and globally. Growth in this orbit will definitely raise many eyebrows, given TikTok’s roots in China – a position it recently had to defend in a Senate hearing focused on national security. 

However, as of today, Facebook still remains the primary source of news consumption across all accessible social media in the United States. Pew discovered that nearly 31% of American adults regularly receive their daily updates from Facebook, which is higher than the 25% who get their news from YouTube, the 14% who get it from Twitter, or the 13% who get it from Instagram.

Even though TikTok stands in fifth place according to these rankings, as only 10% of U.S. adults use the platform to get their news through the video app, it could become an imminent cause of concern when TikTok’s sizable user base of those under the age of 18 grows up, directly affecting this metric.

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@collabstr

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