More American adults are getting news on social media than previously reported, with a jump from 49 percent four years ago to 62 percent in 2016.
Of the 62 percent who see news on the social media 18% do so often.
The findings come from a new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation .
The survey analyzed the scope and characteristics of social media news consumers across nine social networking sites during Jan. 12-Feb. 8, 2016 with 4,654 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel
Findings say two-thirds of Facebook users (66%) get news on the site, nearly six-in-ten Twitter users (59%) get news on Twitter, and seven-in-ten Reddit users get news on that platform. On Tumblr, the figure sits at 31%, while for the other five social networking sites it is true of only about one-fifth or less of their user bases, the research center said.
When combined with the sites’ total reach, the proportion of users who gets news on each site translates to U.S. adults overall, a report says.
By far, Facebook is the largest social networking site, reaching 67% of U.S. adults. The two-thirds of Facebook users who get news there, then, amount to 44% of the general population. YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 48% of U.S. adults. But only about a fifth of its users get news there, which amounts to 10% of the adult population. That puts it on par with Twitter, which has a smaller user base (16% of U.S. adults) but a larger portion getting news there, according to the study.
An interesting finding tells that of those who get news on at least one of the sites, a majority (64%) get news on just one – most commonly Facebook. About a quarter, 26%, get news on two of those sites. Just one-in-ten get news on three or more.
But there is some crossover in getting news on the social media, each site appeals to a somewhat different group. Instagram news consumers stand out from other groups as more likely to be non-white, young and, for all but Facebook, female. LinkedIn news consumers are more likely to have a college degree than news users of the other four platforms; Twitter news users are the second most likely, the survey says.
