Recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center has revealed two pieces of information regarding Facebook that basically sums up how the social media platform is operating in the present day and the challenges that it currently faces with regards to its overall longevity.
The first piece of information that this research revealed was that about half of all adults living in the US, 52% to be exact, got their news from Facebook. When you couple this with the fact that about 71% of all US adults use Facebook in the first place, this basically means that most people that use Facebook tend to get quite a bit of their daily intake of news from it as well, which might indicate that the social media platform is finding a fair amount of success in this area, success that could potentially result in it getting a lot more traction in the future.
However, the second piece of information that the Pew Research Center discovered puts the first piece of information into context and reveals that things are not quite so positive when it comes to Facebook and the kind of impact that it is currently having on the world. This second piece of information is that 62% percent of all respondents of the survey that was conducted in order to acquire this data stated that they felt like Facebook and social media in general had too much control over the news that they received.
Over half of the respondents also felt like the one sided nature of the news that they ended up receiving due to YouTube’s algorithms was the sort of thing that made it difficult to really trust any of the news that they were receiving. This definitely does not bode well for social media platforms and Facebook in particular is going to have to act quickly in order to fix this.
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has struggled to convince people that it is a trustworthy place for them to get their news, and with Facebook’s separate tab for news, an attempt on the social media juggernaut’s part to try and gain more control over the news that spreads on the platform, being launched, this is really not the best kind of information to be coming out regarding the people that use this platform in general.
One thing that should be noted, however, is that the numbers regarding how many people get their news from Facebook are actually quite favorable if you discount the trustworthiness issues that the platform is currently facing. YouTube is used by slightly more adults in the US than Facebook, with about 74% saying that they used the platform. However, even though 52% of all adults in the US got their news from Facebook, only 28% said that they got their news from YouTube which means that Facebook is able to convert its userbase a lot more successfully than YouTube something that might just give the platform a bit more hope in this regard.
Twitter is used by 23% of adults in the US and 17% of all adults get their news from Twitter, which makes this social media platform the most successful when it comes to being used for news. Even though Twitter is lagging behind in terms of raw numbers, the high percentage of its users that use it for news means that it is a more trusted platform than Facebook is at present.
Read next: LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram are the most trusted social media platforms
The first piece of information that this research revealed was that about half of all adults living in the US, 52% to be exact, got their news from Facebook. When you couple this with the fact that about 71% of all US adults use Facebook in the first place, this basically means that most people that use Facebook tend to get quite a bit of their daily intake of news from it as well, which might indicate that the social media platform is finding a fair amount of success in this area, success that could potentially result in it getting a lot more traction in the future.
However, the second piece of information that the Pew Research Center discovered puts the first piece of information into context and reveals that things are not quite so positive when it comes to Facebook and the kind of impact that it is currently having on the world. This second piece of information is that 62% percent of all respondents of the survey that was conducted in order to acquire this data stated that they felt like Facebook and social media in general had too much control over the news that they received.
Over half of the respondents also felt like the one sided nature of the news that they ended up receiving due to YouTube’s algorithms was the sort of thing that made it difficult to really trust any of the news that they were receiving. This definitely does not bode well for social media platforms and Facebook in particular is going to have to act quickly in order to fix this.
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has struggled to convince people that it is a trustworthy place for them to get their news, and with Facebook’s separate tab for news, an attempt on the social media juggernaut’s part to try and gain more control over the news that spreads on the platform, being launched, this is really not the best kind of information to be coming out regarding the people that use this platform in general.
One thing that should be noted, however, is that the numbers regarding how many people get their news from Facebook are actually quite favorable if you discount the trustworthiness issues that the platform is currently facing. YouTube is used by slightly more adults in the US than Facebook, with about 74% saying that they used the platform. However, even though 52% of all adults in the US got their news from Facebook, only 28% said that they got their news from YouTube which means that Facebook is able to convert its userbase a lot more successfully than YouTube something that might just give the platform a bit more hope in this regard.
Twitter is used by 23% of adults in the US and 17% of all adults get their news from Twitter, which makes this social media platform the most successful when it comes to being used for news. Even though Twitter is lagging behind in terms of raw numbers, the high percentage of its users that use it for news means that it is a more trusted platform than Facebook is at present.
Read next: LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram are the most trusted social media platforms
