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Social media losing importance as news source

Social media’s importance as news source has fallen slightly. According to a new study, 19% of US social media users get news via social media often, compared to 23% last year. 29% access news via social media sometimes, compared to 30% last year, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows.

Some sites are more “newsy” even if their total audience is relatively small. So is Twitter used by 23% of US adults, but 55% of those users get news on the site regularly.

64% of those who regularly get news on Facebook are women while two-thirds of Reddit’s regular news consumers are men.

Anyway, despite this modest decline, 48% of US adults say they get news from social media “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020.

For those who regularly get news on social media, Facebook is by far the most important. 31%  say they get news regularly on Facebook with 22% for YouTube, 13% Twitter, 11% Instagram, 7% Reddit, 6% TikTok, 4% LinkedIn, 4% Snapchat, 3% WhatsApp and 1% Twitch.

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The share of people who regularly get news on Facebook has declined slightly (36% in 2020 vs. 31% in 2021).

Overall, the percentage of users of each site who regularly get news there has remained relatively stable since 2020 but both Facebook and TikTok buck this trend, the study says.

The share of Facebook users who say they regularly get news on the site has declined 7 points since 2020, from 54% to 47% in 2021.

TikTok has seen a slight uptick in the portion of users who say they regularly get news on the site, rising from 22% to 29% in this period.

“White adults make up a majority of the regular news consumers of Facebook and Reddit (60% and 54%, respectively), yet just under four-in-ten Instagram news consumers (36%) are White. Both Black and Hispanic adults each make up a sizable portion of Instagram’s regular news consumers (20% and 33%, respectively).”

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