Young Cypriots ...
Young Cypriots Spend Three Hours a Day on TikTok as Social Media Dominates News Consumption
A fresh survey conducted by the University of Nicosia’s IMR unit for the Cyprus Youth Organisation (ONEK) has revealed that young people in Cyprus (ages 14-35) are spending on average nearly three hours daily on TikTok and around two hours on Instagram.
74 % of respondents indicated that social-media pages of news organisations are their main source of information.
Instagram remains the most adopted platform (92 % of young people), followed by Facebook (88 %) and TikTok (53 %), particularly among 14-24 year-olds.
Time spent declines with age: younger individuals (mid-teens) are spending up to 3 hours per day on TikTok, whereas older respondents average around 1 hour.
The nature of content is shifting: 84 % of respondents actively watch short-video news (3 minutes) for learning; 66 % watch longer videos for deeper topics. Podcasts also show uptake: 54 % listen to episodes under 15 minutes.
On the flip side, there is widespread concern about misinformation: 88 % have encountered false news, 40 % struggle to assess validity of content, 29 % cite too much information, and 25 % cited no difficulty.
This trend has major implications for media literacy, public opinion formation, youth mental-health and the functioning of democracy in Cyprus. When younger people spend large blocks of time on visually-driven and fast-pace platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the style, attention span and depth of news consumption change. News becomes snackable, more algorithm-driven, and more prone to virality (and hence misinformation). With 74 % relying on social-media news-pages and only 10 % on official websites, traditional news-outlets and verification mechanisms are under pressure.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, the shift reflects how connected and integrated young Cypriots are with global digital media, signalling a generation that lives in hybrid online/offline spaces. For news organisations and educators, this represents a chance to meet youth where they are, use more engaging formats (video, interactive, short form) and improve media literacy. On the other hand, the reliance on short-video formats and social-media algorithms raises serious concerns: shallower engagement with issues, reduced critical thinking, and higher vulnerability to misinformation. The finding that 40 % struggle to assess content validity is troubling.
For policy-makers, schools and parents this means adapting: media education needs to be embedded earlier, digital-skills training must emphasise verification, source-checking, attention management. For youth themselves, building habits of slower, deeper consumption (longer videos, podcasts, reading credible sources) will matter for their civic participation, mental health and resilience in a fast-moving media ecosystem. Ultimately, Cyprus has a chance to lead in cultivating a digital-savvy generation , but only if stakeholders act proactively rather than reactively
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