Digital news has become an important part of Americans’ news media diets, with social media playing a crucial role in news consumption. Today, half of U.S. adults get news at least sometimes from social media.
News consumption on social media
When it comes to where Americans regularly get news on social media, Facebook outpaces all other social media sites. Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they regularly get news there. Slightly fewer (26%) regularly get news on YouTube.
Smaller shares regularly get news on Instagram (16%), TikTok (14%), X (12%) or Reddit (8%). Even fewer Americans regularly get news on Nextdoor (5%), LinkedIn (5%), Snapchat (4%), WhatsApp (3%) or Twitch (1%).
(Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say they have seen or heard something about the renaming of Twitter as X. The platform’s name change took place in July 2023.)
Some social media sites – despite having relatively small overall audiences – stand out for having high shares of users who regularly go to the site for news. For example, roughly half of users on X (53%) get news there. On the other hand, only 15% of Snapchat users regularly get news on the app.
Who consumes news on each social media site
There are demographic differences, such as by gender, in who turns to each social media site regularly for news. Women make up a greater portion of regular news consumers on Nextdoor (66%), Facebook (62%), Instagram (59%) and TikTok (58%), while men make up a greater share on sites like Reddit (67%), X (62%) and YouTube (58%).
Some partisan differences also arise when it comes to who regularly gets news on some social media sites. The majority of regular news consumers on many sites are Democrats or lean Democratic. No social media site included here has regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republicans or lean Republican, though there is no significant partisan difference among news consumers on Facebook, X or Nextdoor. (Read the Appendix for data on U.S. adults in each demographic group and party who regularly get news from each social media site.)
Find out more
This fact sheet was compiled by Research Analyst Jacob Liedke and Research Associate Luxuan Wang.
Read the methodology and the topline.
Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Follow these links for more in-depth analysis of news consumption:
News Platform Fact Sheet, Nov. 15, 2023
More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend on most other social media sites, Nov. 15, 2023
Americans are following the news less closely than they used to, Oct. 24, 2023
Black Americans’ Experiences With News, Sept. 26, 2023
U.S. adults under 30 now trust information from social media almost as much as from national news outlets, Oct. 27, 2022
More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend on other social media sites, Oct. 21, 2022
The Role of Alternative Social Media in the News and Information Environment, Oct. 6, 2022
Twitter is the go-to social media site for U.S. journalists, but not for the public, June 27, 2022
News on Twitter: Consumed by Most Users and Trusted by Many, Nov. 15, 2021
More than eight-in-ten Americans get news from digital devices, Jan. 12, 2021
Measuring News Consumption in a Digital Era, Dec. 8, 2020
Many Americans Get News on YouTube, Where News Organizations and Independent Producers Thrive Side by Side, Sept. 28, 2020
Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable, July 30, 2020
Read all reports and short reads related to news platforms and sources.
