Commentary

How To Influence Future Voters

• by Joe Mandese , 6 hours ago

If the youth vote has been all about TikTok in recent U.S. elections, political operatives may want to expand more deeply into Instagram and Snapchat -- if not for the midterms, for 2028 when many of the teens in a new Pew Research Center study will be coming of age to vote.

The study, released this morning, covers a wide variety of social media use cases, including entertainment, family matters, general interest and, yes, even product marketing, but when it comes to where younger Americans keep up with politics and political issues, 29% favor TikTok, just ahead of Instagram (28%), and Snapchat (19%).

Overall, the study paints a pretty negative picture of American teen social media usage with significant percentages acknowledging harassment, self-esteem and additive use cases, as well as corresponding concerns among parents of teens.

In terms of ethnic composition, Black teens tend to index much higher than the general population when it comes to learning about politics and political issues across all three social platforms.

While the majority of teens say they don't use the platforms for political reasons, the study does not delve into where else they might turn to for such information.