TikTok news use rises to 1 in 5 U.S. adults
More Americans now get news from short videos, where the first thing they meet is often a person, clip, or vibe instead of a source.
You open an app for a break, and the news finds you as a face talking into a camera. It feels direct. It feels human. That does not always mean it is checked.
The share of U.S. adults regularly getting news on TikTok rose from 3% in 2020 to 20% in 2025.
- short videos make news feel personal and easy to understand
- young adults are already comfortable learning from creators
- platform feeds can make emotional clips travel faster than source pages
- news outlets and public figures now package serious events for social video
You are not just choosing news anymore. The feed is choosing what feels important before you ever ask who verified it.
Behind the numbersOpen
Observed values come from Pew Research Center reporting on U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok. Pew reports 3% in 2020, 10% in 2022, 14% in 2023, 17% in 2024, and about one fifth, treated here as 20%, in 2025. The 2025 survey included 5,153 U.S. adults from Aug. 18 to 24, 2025, weighted to represent the U.S. adult population. The 2022 value is from Pew reporting summarized in peer-reviewed and public writeups of the Pew 2022 social media news fact sheet. Projection is an editorial direction call, not a Pew forecast.