By Darren Johnson
Campus News
Not only is the President uncool among young adults, but so are two big social media platforms.
The UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion today released a poll that said Millennials (ages 18-37) disliked Donald Trump and the platforms Twitter and Facebook in equal numbers. All three scored a mere 37% approval rating in the nonpartisan poll of 1000 younger adults.
It’s not that surprising Millennials don’t like the president all that much — and even two-fifths of young Republicans say he tweets too much — but the fact that they don’t like Twitter and Facebook overall is an interesting add-on to this survey.
“I was surprised to see such low favorables for Facebook and Twitter, given that this generation makes up a huge part of the user bases of both platforms. Younger millennials may be switching to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, but I think this finding reinforces the idea that while lots of people use these services, they don’t make people happy,” said John Cluverius, associate director of the Center for Public Opinion and assistant professor of political science, who oversaw the poll and analyzed the results.
These findings show that social media just isn’t all that enjoyed by this prime demographic. Interesting in that marketers trying to reach Millennials have moved their ad budgets to digital. One would think younger Generation Z is even more wary of social media.
Perhaps marketers should think twice about placing their ads in a place their intended audience actually kind of hates. Maybe journalists should reconsider writing stories tweaked for Instant Stories.
This can’t be good news for the social media sites that rely on ad dollars and the perception of a sheeplike grinning audience with dollars to burn. The younger audience is much smarter than that.
The study is full of other interesting tidbits: Millennials like Bernie Sanders more than any other Democratic candidate, but 54% say they will vote for any Democrat who takes on Trump. They are mostly in favor of more controls on guns, but are more conservative when it comes to immigration — perhaps because they are new to the job market, where immigrants may be competition. You can read the press release here.
The report is worth reading. Soon, Millennials will be the largest generation in America, and their views will become more and more mainstream. It’s good to know what’s coming.
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