Instagram to overtake Twitter as a news source Survey says

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Instagram to overtake Twitter as a news source Survey says. 

Photo-sharing app Instagram is set to overtake Twitter as a news source, research suggests.

Instagram is likely to overtake Twitter as a source for news within the next year, according to the 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News report. Use of the Facebook-owned app for news has doubled across age groups since 2018, the report says.  

It said nearly a quarter of UK 18-24-year-olds used Instagram as a source of news about coronavirus.

Instagram, which in recent years has expanded to include features like Stories and IGTV, now reaches more than a third of those surveyed weekly and two-thirds of people under the age of 25. As people spend more time on Instagram, news has played a bigger role on the app. Eleven percent of people across age groups use Instagram for news, while 12% currently use Twitter for that purpose, the report found. 

More than two thirds of people use their phones to get news weekly, the survey says, and those who use their phones as a primary means of getting the news are more likely to access that information via social networks. 

Instagram's become very popular with younger people", said Nic Newman, lead author of the report. "They really respond well to stories that are told simply and well with visual images".

Still, just 26% of people said they trust social media such as Facebook and Twitter when it comes to news and information about the coronavirus.

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