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CV NEWS FEED // A new survey by the Pew Research Center reveals a significant trend among younger voters: nearly half of TikTok users aged 18 to 29 are using the platform to get their political news.
Pew Research’s survey found that approximately 48% of TikTok users aged 18 to 29 rely on the platform to stay updated on political issues. In contrast, only 36% of users aged 30 to 49 and even smaller shares of those 50 and older use TikTok for political news.
The survey indicated that close to half of younger TikTok users consider keeping up with politics as a major or minor reason for their having a TikTok account. This is notably higher compared to just 22% of users aged 50 to 64 and 24% of those 65 and older who use TikTok for similar purposes.
“TikTok has increasingly become a destination for news, bucking trends on other social media sites,” the survey also said.
Around 50% of those under 30 use TikTok to receive general news, while 41% of users aged 30 to 49 and smaller shares of older users do the same.
The study also shows that nearly half of all TikTok users see political content on the platform, with younger users more frequently encountering such material than older users do.
Despite this, only about 10% of users across different age groups post anything political, suggesting that the majority of users prefer to consume rather than contribute political content.
As CatholicVote previously reported, in March, the House passed legislation that will require TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the social media platform to an American company or face a ban from U.S. app stores.
President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in April. TikTok has since filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in response to the potential ban.
