How Gen Z Found Out About Trump's Assassination Attempt 🤭
“I found out about the Trump attack at my college graduation party! Yay! Thx twitter notifs!!”
This week, as the presidential election approaches, and in light of the recent attempt to assassinate Trump, we dive into how Gen Z found out about that important piece of news.
📊 Previous Research
Our previous 24/Z newsletter showed what makes media trustworthy for Gen Z. We found that in a world of information overload, the search for truth is tiring.
So Gen Z’ers are left with two options:
Give up on trying
Default to the simplest path - the path of mainstream news and institutions.
But the trust in this information is different from how they are finding out about it.
Morning Consult: How Gen Z gets their News.
A 2023 study by Morning Consult revealed that most of Gen Z’s media consumption occurs primarily through social media platforms (shocking), showing a clear preference for turning to streaming and social compared to reading or listening as a frequent source for their news.
While certainly telling of the generational differences, the results are not so shocking. In a world where young people are spending 7+ hours per day on their phones, consuming news via social fits the mold for the social-first generation.
Gen Z has discovered a whole new source for news (Business Insider)
A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that 14% of US adults regularly get news from TikTok, up from 3% in 2020.
For Gen Z, this number rose nearly 4x from 9% to 32%. They found Gen Z users were opting for alternative news sources like content creators who break down the news over mainstream outlets.
The research also found that 43% of TikTok users now get news on TikTok regularly, nearly double the 22% in 2020 - and the biggest increase across any platform. X (Twitter) still had the largest share of its users getting news on the platform regularly at over 50% (across all US adults).
🙂↕️ dcdx Gen Z research on finding out about important news
So we wanted to know - when a major, nearly world-changing event happens - how are Gen Z’ers finding out about it?
We heard from nearly 350 Gen Z’ers in our network about where they found out about the attack on Trump.
Here’s what they said:
Top 10 Responses:
TikTok: 68 mentions
Instagram: 64 mentions
Twitter/X: 56 mentions
Social media/Socials: 15 mentions
Text message/Text: 13 mentions
Friends/Friend told me/Friend sent: 12 mentions
News (TV or Channel): 10 mentions
Group chat: 10 mentions
YouTube: 9 mentions
Citizen app: 8 mentions
We also asked our network to share the content pieces that resonated the most with them after the attack on Trump and here are some of them:
The image on the bottom right is how one of our participants found out, telling us:
“the fucking claires piercing meme on an insta story”
From Fortnite memes to Claire’s trolling to hyper-politicized content, “news” now comes with baggage. A Gen Z’er in our network said:
"Seeing people I know post that picture celebrating him on their IG story - lost respect for a lot of people that day."
In our polarized world, sharing news content is no longer about keeping people informed.
It is a demonstration - or perhaps a declaration - of belonging to a community.
And if that is true, then not posting and not sharing is not belonging.
🧠 final takeaways and thoughts
While most of the existing research continues to highlight the evolving nature of news consumption with Gen Z, it misses a vital takeaway.
In Gen Z’s world, news finds them. FYPs, algorithms, and the need-to-know culture we live in today create a world where if something relevant happens, Gen Z will hear about it. In some cases from their closest friends, in some cases on Close Friends (the Instagram story feature), and others after a scroll on socials.
We used to say “Turn on the news” when we wanted someone to know what was going on in the world.
But in today’s world, it feels like the only question left is “How can we turn it off?”
🧠 More on Gen Z, News, & the Upcoming Elections
Gen Z and Millennials are the least likely to vote in this upcoming election (NPR)
"Frustrated but engaged": Gen Z Arizonans plan to vote, but they're not happy about it (Axios)
Two-thirds of Gen Z Arizonans are planning to “definitely” vote in the upcoming election.
"Arizona Gen Z voters are ready to step in to take over as the boomers fade away, but they are profoundly frustrated with the political world that has been handed down to them," report co-author Thom Reilly said in a press release. "They are not ready to give up on democracy, but they want to participate on their own terms."
As the founder of a startup that's working to solve this problem, this is extremely insightful.
"in a world of information overload, the search for truth is tiring" This is spot on!
Also, news tends to be
- Extremely serious - we want more than just world events, politics, and finance.
- Dispersed, can't be bothered to go to 10 different platforms to stay updated.
- Long form format does not suit us. After the Tiktokification of our brains, our attention span has dropped.
- Websites full of pop up ads don't help either. When I worked in finance, I was on ft.com every single day. The day I switched career tracks, I never went back.
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