The ‘typical adult’ follows no politicians or journalists on TikTok, survey finds [Video]

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election there has been much speculation about where U.S. voters are getting their news and engaging with candidates. A new survey suggests that TikTok might not be that place.

Pew Research Center analyzed 664 adult TikTok users in the U.S. and concluded that “the typical U.S. adult on TikTok” follows no politicians, civil actors, traditional media outlets, or journalists. Each of those categories — the Pew study grouped who users followed into types of accounts — made up less than half a percent of the total accounts followed by surveyed users. For instance, just 0.4 percent of the followed accounts belonged to journalist, pundits, or traditional media outlets. Instead, TikTok users tend to follow accounts that post about pop culture and entertainment — which made up 56 percent of accounts followed in the study.

But TikTok accounts can be challenging to pigeon-hole into one topic. Many TikTokkers occupy a niche of pop culture …