Global: Has social media become an important source for news?
August 5th, 2022, Janice Fernandes

Global: Has social media become an important source for news?

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns pushed social media interactions to centre stage and made it one of the primary mediums for human interaction. In another piece we looked at the extent to which people use social media to catch up on the news. This latest data from YouGov Global Profiles builds on that and reveals the proportion of consumers who use social media for entertainment and news content.

Over half of global consumers (58%) agree that they mainly use social media for entertainment and news. When broken down by region, data reveals that consumers in APAC and MENA are exactly as likely as the global audience to use social media as a source of entertainment and news (58% each), while the Americas and Europe are within the margin of error. This shows a homogeneity which is unusual to find.

While European (59%) and American (59%) consumers are slightly more likely to agree with the statement, around two in ten consumers in both these markets say they don’t look for entertainment and news content on social media (20% Americas and 19% Europe). This suggests that these consumers are more likely to use social media for other purposes like connecting with family and friends.

Among global consumers who use social media as a source of entertainment and news, 45% agree that it has changed their life for the better.

Consumers in APAC and MENA outpace global respondents, with around half agreeing with the statement (51% and 47%, respectively). However, there is a significant drop in agreement in the States (39%) and a further decline in Europe (27%).

European consumers (38%) who use social media for entertainment and news are twice as likely as global respondents (19%) to say that social media has not changed their life for the better. Slightly fewer, but still a third of consumers (30%) in the American region also share the same opinion.

Methodology: YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 43 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.

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