Ofcom: GenZ turn to social media for news

Young people – GenZ – are increasingly abandoning mainstream TV news in favour of social media, according to UK media watchdog Ofcom.

According to regulator’s News Consumption in the UK 2022/3 report, older teens and young adults aged 16-24 are much more likely to consume news online than adults generally (83% vs 68%).

Most GenZers consume news via social media on their mobile phones (63% vs 39% for adults generally).

GenZ are also much less likely than the average adult to access news content from traditional media sources, such as TV (47% vs 70% of adults generally), radio (25% vs 40%) and print newspapers (16% vs 26%).

The study also finds that 16-24s are much less likely than other adults to navigate straight to traditional news websites (9% vs 26%) and more commonly go via social media (37% vs 24%). This behaviour suggests youngsters have less of a direct connection with established news brands, according to Ofcom.

Instagram (44%) is the most-used single news source, followed by Facebook 33%, Twitter 31%, and TikTok, 29%. Coming in joint second, BBC One (33%) is the only traditional media source to feature in their top five.

Among the youngest children in the study aged 12-15, TikTok is now 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 this age group (39%).

The news topics of most interest to younger teens 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%). Lighter news topics are of particular appeal across social media sites TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.