TikTok and Zoomers in Greece
Survey Identity
The following survey was conducted by aboutpeople on behalf of ETERON – Institute for Research and Social Change, between the 15th and the 20th of November. The survey included 440 participants aged 16-25 from across Greece, all users of the TikTok platform. The sampling was conducted through the company’s online panel, using the computer-assisted web interviewing survey method (CAWI) and a structured questionnaire.
How often do they use TikTok? What about other social media platforms?
44.8% of participants stated that they use TikTok for more than 3 hours per day, while 35.2% use it on a daily basis but for less than 3 hours. 10.7% reported using the platform 3-5 times a week, 5.9% do so 1-2 times a week, while 2.5% said they use it selectively to follow specific accounts or hashtags. 39.1% of the male participants reported a daily usage of more than 3 hours, while the respective percentage amongst female users is 50.9%.
Instagram is used by 98% of TikTok users, YouTube by 91.8% and Facebook by 72%. The figures are lower for Pinterest (42.7%), X (33%), Snapchat (26.8%) and LinkedIn (18%). Pinterest is more popular amongst women (63.6%) compared to men (22.7%), while conversely, men use X more than women (47.1% and 17.8% respectively).
TikTok = Entertainment
Entertainment is the main reason for using the platform (78.1%), followed by communication with friends (28.7%), education, as well as staying up to date on social and political matters (22.8%). Other reasons for accessing TikTok are to get information on consumer goods (21.4%), live interaction and art (20.7%), the convenience of video content compared to the written word (16.4%) and the creation of personal content (15.9%). 10.9% of TikTok users use the platform for scientific purposes, while making new acquaintances registers 4.6%. 3.6% use the platform to make money and 2.7% to promote their financial activity. Women register higher percentages in the main usage reasons, while men outnumber women in the less popular ones.
Humour, food, and travelling videos are the most popular content
Humorous videos are the most popular ones (47.4%), followed by food (33.9%) and travelling (24.6%). Women show an increased interest in fashion (35% vs. 20% amongst the general public), travelling (31.3%), influencers (24.8%) and DIY/crafts (16.8%). In contrast, men are more interested in sports news (35.3%), science (23.7%) and cryptocurrencies (17%).
Video sharing
TikTok users are most likely to share videos with friends (81.8%), while 58% share them with their family members. 22.3% share videos with people from other social media platforms and 17.5% with their co-workers. Lower rates of video sharing are observed amongst members of school or student clubs (11.6%), people with common cultural or artistic interests (7.5%), supporters of sports teams (5%) and members of political organisations (3.2%).
Social content profiles
31.7% of the survey participants consider content on women’s empowerment and rights to be useful, 24.6% stated the same regarding content on disabled individuals, 22.8% find content about political figures and politics to be useful, 16.9% think content on men’s empowerment and rights is useful, and another 19.9% consider content on trans and queer people as useful. Other topics considered as useful were religious affairs (14.1%), sports club topics (13.7%), refugees and migrants (13.2%), patriotic groups (11.8%) and the Romani population (6.4%). A total of 18.9% didn’t consider any of the above-mentioned content topics to be useful. Women prioritise women’s rights (50.2%), while men focus more on political figures (30.2%).
1 in 10 follows politics on TikTok on a frequent basis
TikTok users stated that they follow political issues on the platform with the following frequency: 10% do so very often, 31.4% quite often, and 35.5% only follow politics on TikTok occasionally, during election campaigns. 22.3% of the participants said that they hardly ever follow political issues.
As to whether the platform users themselves post political content, the majority (75%) say they do not. The main reasons stated are that they do not enjoy arguing on TikTok (45.9%), that they are not interested in politics in general (16.6%), and that they don’t feel that politics has a place on TikTok (12.5%). The minority that does post political content does so in order to raise awareness around social issues (7.7%), because they feel that they can contribute positively to society (6.8%) or because they consider TikTok to be a part of their lives (5.9%).
TikTok and democracy
28% of its users think that TikTok is mostly beneficial for democracy, 16.6% think it is detrimental to it, while 45.9% believe that TikTok does not affect democracy positively or negatively. The groups that stated that TikTok is mostly detrimental to democracy in the highest percentages are students (26.9%), part-time employees (27.3%) and the unemployed (20.5%).
Politicians on TikTok
The majority of the survey participants (73%) do not follow accounts of political parties or political figures on TikTok. Amongst the 25.7% who do, though, the majority are men (34.2%) compared to women (16.8%). Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the most popular politician on the platform (50.4%), followed by Stefanos Kasselakis (32.7%) and Zoe Konstantopoulou (30.1%). Other politicians such as Afroditi Latinopoulou, Nikos Androulakis and Kyriakos Velopoulos follow with lower percentages (22.1%, 19.5% and 18.6% respectively), while Dimitris Koutsoumpas, Dimitris Natsios and Alexis Charitsis are in single digits (9.7%, 7.1% and 6.2% respectively). It should be noted that while the survey was being conducted, SYRIZA had not yet elected a new president.
Political and social issues on TikTok
The political issues that users have followed most regularly in the past 12 months were the Tempi train disaster (44.8%), expensiveness and the price increases (35.9%), and the US elections (35.5%). These were followed by the war in Ukraine (24.8%), the war in the Middle East (20.5%), and the European elections (20.2%). Lower percentages were recorded for student protests (17.7%), the relations between Greece and Turkey (11.8%), refugee-related topics (10%), and the internal elections in SYRIZA and PASOK (6.4%).
The social issues most consistently followed by TikTok users in the past 12 months were femicides (37%), followed by natural disasters (30.9%) and artificial intelligence matters (22.7%). There was also a consistent interest in issues related to interpersonal violence and youth violence (18.2%), as well as police violence (17.5%), climate change (16.6%) and human rights (15.2%). Workplace rights (13.2%), LGBTQI issues (11.8%), animal welfare (11.6%) and the woke agenda (10.7%) score lower, while immigration (9.8%), private universities (5.7%), religion (5.2%), over-tourism (5%) and vaccine criticism (4.3%) round up the list.
Participation encouragement through TikTok
31.8% of users have participated in online discussions on social issues, while 22.7% stated that TikTok has encouraged them to participate in electoral processes. 17% participated in online activism or other cancelling actions (#cancel) targeting companies, groups, persons or applications with inappropriate attitudes, while 16.8% participated in spontaneous actions with common interests. Furthermore, 15% have taken part in demonstrations or other public protest actions, and 11.1% have been motivated to engage in live collective commentary. It is worth noting that 1 in 3 (32%) state that they do not participate in any of the aforementioned types of action. From the demographic data, we can see that women are more often encouraged to participate in online discussions around social issues than men (35% and 28.4% respectively), while Attica residents participate in online activism or cancelling initiatives (#cancel) (22.3%) more than those residing in the rest of the country (22.3% and 14% respectively).
Reasons to stop following accounts on TikTok
Lastly, the main reasons why users stop following TikTok accounts are the spread of fake news (60.2%) and boring video content (50%). Other reasons include the use of hate speech against social groups or individuals (42.3%), promoting unreliable products or services (36.6%) and feeling personally threatened (32.3%). Also, 25.7% would unfollow accounts because of verbose commentary around politics, while 11.8% stated that they’re discouraged from following an account that isn’t updated regularly.
