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TikTok has been so popular among young Americans that presidential campaigns use it to raise voter awareness. And some young adults are using TikTok to stay up-to-date on politics or get informed, a Pew Research Center survey from March showed.
Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand age differences in TikTok users’ opinions and experiences on the platform. The questions are drawn from a larger survey exploring the opinions and experiences of TikTok, X, Facebook, and Instagram users. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,287 adult internet users in the United States from March 18 to March 24, 2024.
All respondents to the survey are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through a national random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly every American adult has a chance of being selected. The survey was weighted by combining the sample of internet users with data from ATP members who do not use the internet and weighting the combined dataset to be representative of all American adults by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, and other categories. This analysis is based on those who use TikTok. Learn more about the ATP methodology.
Here are the questions used for this analysisas well as answers, and the survey methodology.
This is a Pew Research Center analysis conducted as part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related reports online at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.
Our investigation explored There are several reasons why people may use TikTok and other social media platforms. Young TikTok users stand out from their older peers for several of these reasons, including:
To keep up to date with politics or political issues. For 48% of TikTok users aged 18 to 29, it’s a major or minor reason why they’re on the platform.
By comparison, 36% of people aged 30 to 49 and even smaller shares of older users say the same:
- 22% of 50 to 64 year olds
- 24% of people aged 65 and over
Get news. We also asked TikTok users if Getting informed in general is a reason why they use the platform – whether it’s political news or something else. About half of those under 30 say getting news is a major or minor reason they use TikTok.
By comparison, 41% of TikTok users aged 30 to 49 say that getting news is one of the reasons they use TikTok. The share of older users who say the same is even lower:
- 29% of 50 to 64 year olds
- 23% of people aged 65 and over
TikTok has increasingly become a news destination, bucking the trends of other social media sites. A study by the Center of 2023 showed that more Americans – and especially young Americans – regularly get news on the platform compared to a few years ago.
To learn more about what drives TikTok usage – such as entertainment, which is a major draw for most TikTok users – read our deep dive into why and how people use the platform.
What people see and share on TikTok
View political content
Nearly half of TikTok users (45%) say they see at least some content about politics or political issues on the platform. This includes 6% of users who say political content makes up all or most of what they see.
Half of users under 30 say they see at least some political content on TikTok. That’s more than the 39% of those 50 and older who say the same. However, the shares of users ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 who say this are statistically similar.
Sharing political content
As on other platforms we have studiedmuch smaller parts job on the policy that see Political content on TikTok. About one in ten users ages 18-29 (7%), 30-49 (8%), and 50-64 (8%) post at least some political content on TikTok. That compares to just 2% of TikTok users ages 65 and older.
But many users – 63% – don’t post anything at all.
Only 36% of TikTok users say they post or share content on the platform. Users aged 30 to 49 are most likely to say so, at 44%. That’s compared to 37% of 18-29 year-olds, 26% of 50-64 year-olds, and 15% of those aged 65 and over.
View news related content
It doesn’t matter whether or not TikTok users claim that getting information is a reason they’re there, Most see humor and opinions on current events on the platform:
- 84% say they Never see funny posts that reference current events on TikTok
- 80% of people see people expressing their opinions on current events
- 57% see news articles published, republished, linked or screenshotted
- 55% see information about a news event as it happens
Users under 50 are more likely than older users to report having seen each of these items.
TikTok users under 30 stand out even more when they see opinions on current events and news information. They are more likely than any other age group to see both types of content.
TikTok and democracy
Debates surrounding TikTok’s impact on the political environment in the United States – including for young voters in particular – are in the national spotlight. We wanted to understand: Do TikTok users think the platform impacts democracy, and how?
Overall, TikTok users are about twice as likely to think it’s primarily GOOD for American democracy as it is, to think that it is primarily bad (33% vs. 17%). But the largest share of users (49%) think that it has no impact on democracy.
TikTok users under 30, however, are more positive: 45% of them believe that the app is primarily beneficial for democracy. For comparison:
- 30% of users are between 30 and 49 years old
- 23% of users aged 50 to 64
- 15% of users are 65 years and older
Even among users under 30, 39% believe that the platform has no impact on democracy. This proportion rises to 66% among users aged 65 and over.
The March survey found only minor differences by political party among TikTok users because of its impact on democracy. Yet, as lawmakers TikTok attempted ban over national security concernsFurther research by the Center found that opinions about banning the platform were sharply divided by political party to the general public.
To learn more about how Americans perceive and use TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram, read these additional reports:
These Pew Research Center reports and this analysis come from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Note: Here are the questions used for this analysisas well as answers, and the survey methodology.
