A recent survey of the top social media platforms and their users has found most adults in the United States get their news from social media.
The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. has analyzed nine social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Vine, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit and Tumblr.
About 62 percent of American adults get their news from social networking sites, of which 18 percent regularly check their social media feed for news on various topics. The research showed, as expected, that Facebook is the top social media source for daily news.
They found that 66 percent of Facebook users get their news from the site. About 59 percent of Twitter users get news from the microblogging platform, while 70 percent of Reddit users stay updated through the site.
About 31 percent of Tumblr users do the same. As for the rest of social media platforms, only about 20 percent, or even less users get news from these sites.
Taking into consideration that Facebook is being used by 67 percent of the entire U.S. adult population (compared with Twitter's 16 percent), the large user base has placed Mark Zuckerberg's company as the top social media source for daily news.
Interestingly, while Reddit showed a bigger percentage of users getting news from the site, its user base is minuscule compared to Facebook's enormous reach.
"I'm not surprised that people are [getting] their information from the platforms they're on and what they're exposed to," said Sree Sreenivasan, a digital and social media expert and the chief digital officer of The Metropolitan Museum.
Sreenivasan added that the findings remind the media how vital it is to be present in various platforms so they can connect with the readers there. The trend is expected to continue and even expand in the next few years.
"We'll see this come more into focus in the years ahead as these platforms become more dominant in our lives," added Sreenivasan.
The research team based their findings on the results of a survey of 4,654 members of Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel. The survey was conducted from Jan. 12 to Feb. 8.
