Media Consumption

Social Media Surpasses Print As News Source

For the first time social media beat out print as an avenue for news consumption. Earlier this week Pew released a study on news consumption by platform for adults in the United States.

Levels of news consumption on social media and print were close in how frequently people turned to each platform for news. About a fifth of U.S. adults surveyed frequently got their news from social media, while about 16 percent of U.S. adults frequently read their news from print newspapers.

While more adults are getting their news from social media, people are more likely to see information on social media as inaccurate when compared to print outlets.

Description

This chart shows the percent of U.S. adults who frequently get news from each platform.

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Share of adults who have used selected news sources to access news in the past month in the United States as of May 2026
Premium statistics
Share of adults who use social media as a source of news in the United States as of the 4th quarter of 2019, by gender
Most popular news platforms for political and government issues among adults in the United States as of November 2019
Premium statistics
Frequency of getting news from social media sites in the United States from 2020 to 2025
Frequency of news consumption via social media among adults in the United States from 2020 to 2022
Sources of information about news and current affairs in selected countries worldwide as of June 2020

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