In the United Kingdom, young people, aged 16 to 24, outperform older adults in terms of online news consumption (83% versus 68% of adults overall), with only 9% of them navigating directly to news sites.
Instead, 37% consume news via social media, which means viral articles are more likely to be absorbed than low-profile ones.
Across the entire age group, Instagram topped the list with 44%, followed by Facebook (33%), Twitter (31%) and TikTok (29%). Breaking this social media monopoly is the BBC, which still matches Facebook with 33%.
But an interesting trend is happening among younger Gen-Zers. Among children aged 12 to 15, video apps are the most used news source, with TikTok at 28% and YouTube at 25%.
Teen news consumption by social platform
/ OfcomIf this continues as they move between age groups, this could be a significant development in public notice levels in the long run. Without regulatory guidelines and sub-editors to check print and broadcast news, and a history of effectively spreading misinformation and misinformation, social networks provide an imperfect way to inform the public.
There are differences between social platforms and the type of news that tends to be consumed on each. For example, Twitter is the source of political news for 45% of users, while this is only 25% on TikTok, where celebrities (55%) and fun and entertainment news (43%) dominate.
However, this should not be exaggerated, especially when considering the vastly different numbers of Britons per network. A small percentage on Facebook, with three billion users, is still more than Twitter, with an estimated 350 million.
While there are differences in the consumption of these types of news across specific social media platforms, most platforms are used for a variety of news types, the report said.
