Young adults turning to social media for news, finds Ofcom

Ofcom’s News consumption in the UK 2022/23 report found that people aged 16 to 24 were far more likely to consumer news online than the general population ( 83% versus 68%).

Social media accessed through mobile phones accounted for 63% of all news consumption by 16 to 24-year-olds, Ofcom said, compared with 39% across the UK adult population.

People in this age group are also much less likely than the average adult to access news content from traditional media sources, like television ( 47% vs 70%), radio ( 25% vs 40%) and print newspapers ( 16% vs 26%).

The research added that 16 to 24-year-olds were much less likely than other adults to go straight to traditional news websites ( 9% vs 26%) and more commonly go via social media ( 37% vs 24%).

Instagram ( 44%) is the most-used single news source, followed by Facebook at 33%, Twitter with 31% and TikTok at 29%, with the only traditional media source in the top five for this age group being BBC One ( 33%) in joint second.

Among 12 to 15-year-olds, TikTok is the most used single source of news across all platforms ( 28%), followed by YouTube ( 25%) and Instagram ( 25%).

However, taking into account all news content across its platforms, the BBC still has the highest reach of any news organisation among the youngest age group ( 39%).

The news topics of most interest to younger teenagers generally are ‘sports or sports personalities’ ( 23%), ‘music news or singers’ ( 15%), ‘celebrities or famous people’ ( 11%), ‘serious things going on in the UK’ ( 8%) and news about ‘animals or the environment’ ( 9%).