Social Media

Majorities of teens credit social media with strengthening their friendships and providing support while also noting the emotionally charged side of these platforms.

One-in-five federal, state and local candidate tweets in 2022 have mentioned race, abortion, education or the economy.

While 38% of U.S. adults say they have heard of Parler, just 1% of Americans regularly get news there.

In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.

A majority of teens say a welcoming, safe online environment is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online.

The landscape of social media is ever-changing, especially among teens who often are on the leading edge of this space. A new survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 finds that TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens, while the share of teens who use Facebook has fallen sharply.

Here are five facts about political content on Twitter, such as the content and nature of these posts.

The social media sites that journalists use most frequently for their jobs differ from those that the public turns to for news.  

Roughly one-quarter of American adults use Twitter. And when they share their views on the site, quite often they are doing so about politics and political issues.

61% of U.S. adults say they have heard at least a fair amount about the phrase “cancel culture,” up from 44% in September 2020.