Sharing news in social media has become a noticeable phenomenon because individuals can now participate in news production and diffusion in the large global virtual communities. Nowadays, Americans are using social media increasingly to get their daily dose of news.

Take a sneak peek at the top line findings of using social media platforms for news inside the United States in 2017:

• 67% of Americans reported that they get at least some of their news on social media, with 20% of them doing that so often and 27% sometimes.
• 55% of Americans aged 50 or older said that they get news on social media sites. While those how are under 50 are more likely than their elders to get news from these sites (78%).
• Non-white Americans are more likely to get news on social media sites than white ones (74% vs. 64%).
• Less educated Americans also are more likely to get news on social media sites than others who have a bachelor’s degree (69% vs. 63%).
• Twitter (74%), YouTube (32%) and Snapchat (29%) are the main social media sites which users get news on.
• Two-thirds of Americans (66%) use Facebook with 45% of those users get news on this platform, followed by YouTube which holds a large user base – 58% of all American population – with only 18% of them use the platform to get news.

Graph of US Social Media Users by Age, Education, White & Nonwhite

Methodology:

Data were driven by 4,971 American adults. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 2.5% points. The survey was conducted between August 8 & 21, 2017.