A major new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford shows that people aged 18–24 now get most of their news through social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube rather than traditional news websites or apps.
The study “Understanding Young News Audiences at a Time of Rapid Change” synthesizes more than a decade of data and finds that news for this group is increasingly incidental, short-form, and personality-driven.
Key findings include:
- Social media is the main gateway to news for young audiences, rising sharply since 2015, while direct access to publisher sites has declined.
- Audiovisual formats dominate: young people prefer watching and listening to news and engage more with individual creators (51%) than traditional news brands (39%).
- Daily news consumption is lower (64% vs. 87% for those 55+), and interest in news and politics is notably weaker.
- News avoidance rates are similar across ages (around 42%), but young people more often cite irrelevance or difficulty understanding the content.
- Younger audiences are far more comfortable with AI tools for news (15% weekly use vs. 3% of older adults) and respond positively to AI-assisted explanations of complex stories.
The report, authored by Dr. Craig T. Robertson, Dr. Amy Ross Arguedas, Mitali Mukherjee, and Dr. Richard Fletcher, notes that differences between young and older audiences are often of degree rather than kind.
Trust in news is somewhat lower among the young, and they are more open to non-neutral journalism on issues such as climate change or racism.
Implications: Publishers are urged to meet young audiences where they are, on social platforms, with authentic, visual, short-form, and interactive content.
The study highlights successful experiments by both large and small news organizations and stresses the importance of relevance, personality-led formats, and creator collaborations to sustain engagement.
The analysis draws primarily from the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report (2013–2025) and supporting qualitative research. It emphasizes that young people (“social natives”) are not disengaged but consume news differently in a fragmented, algorithm-driven media environment where news competes directly with entertainment.
The full report is available as a free PDF on the Reuters Institute website.