About 17% of adult Americans now get their news on TikTok, compared to only 3% of Americans in 2020.
That’s according to a new report from Pew Research Center, which surveyed 10,658 U.S adults between July 15 and August 4, 2024. These participants are all members of the center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), constructed by a random sampling of residential addresses that have agreed to regularly take surveys.
Within this group, there is a mixture of people from many different backgrounds including race, gender, ethnicity, education, partisan affiliation, and more.
The surveyed adults were asked questions such as how often they get news from television, radio, print publications, and a smartphone, computer, or tablet. (Their options were often, sometimes, rarely, never, and no response.) There were also questions regarding how people get their news online, social media being one of the options.
The survey further asked which apps respondents use, how they prefer getting news, and which social media apps they use for getting news headlines.
TikTok is a popular social media platform for teens and young adults: 63% of people who reported using TikTok in any capacity were young adults, according to Pew. About 39% of adults under 30 expressed that they turn to TikTok regularly for news.
Comparatively, only 19% of adults between 30-49 and 9% of adults 50-64 regularly use TikTok for news, with the lowest percentage being among adults 65 and over, at only 3%.
At the same time, there is an upward trend in general of TikTok users turning to the app for news. In 2020, only 22% of TikTok users regularly consumed news on the platform, according to Pew. This went up to 43% of users in 2023 and 52% of users this year.
TikTok users are now more likely than Facebook users to utilize the app for news, according to Pew, although it still doesn’t beat X in this regard.