Ofcom<\/a> assesses how Brits use, understand, and feel about the media and online services they interact with in their daily lives. The company tracked trends in the U.K.\u2019s media habits and online behaviours over the last year. At a time when trust in the mainstream media is waning and AI looms large, the numbers are telling.<\/p>\n\n\tThe report found that U.K. adults are officially less active on social media, favoring \u201climited lifespan over permanent posts.\u201d Social media use remains widespread, with nine in 10 adult internet users (89 percent) using at least one social media platform, and this rises to 97 percent among 16\u201334-year-olds.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut the research also suggests that social media use is becoming more passive and circumspect \u2014\u00a0around half of adult social media users (49 percent) now actively post, share, or comment \u2014 down from 61 percent in 2024. The proportion exploring new websites fell from 70 percent to 56 percent during the same period. Ofcom found that participants expressed being more selective about what and how they post on social media, with more adults concerned about their online posts causing them problems in the future (49 percent versus 43 percent a year ago).<\/p>\n
\n\tPerhaps unsurprisingly, more than half (54 percent) of U.K. adults now use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini, and this is particularly driven by younger adults. Around one in eight AI users said they use these tools for conversational purposes, rising to around one in five for those aged 25 to 34.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSome participants in our qualitative study appear to be interacting with AI as if it were a person, often unconsciously,\u201d Ofcom added. \u201cIn some cases, they reported using AI to seek relationship breakup advice or to keep them company when working from home. AI is also being used for creative tasks, including room layout planning, wedding speech writing, and creating artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTrust in news sources continues to be mixed and increasingly divided. Most adults (85 percent) say they use mainstream media for news, but trust varies, according to the research. Around one in five adults say they always trust the mainstream media to be accurate, although a similar proportion always question its accuracy.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd while a majority of these participants consider the main broadcast media brands \u2014\u00a0such as BBC News, ITV News, and Sky News \u2014 to be the most trustworthy sources for news stories about U.K. politics or conflict overseas, \u201ca few\u201d are deeply mistrustful of mainstream media, preferring to access their news from independent content creators and citizen journalists on YouTube. \u201cBoth groups seem to be becoming more entrenched in their views,\u201d states the findings.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn this note, for participants in Ofcom\u2019s qualitative study, YouTube has predominantly been used to access content related to their personal interests. From the latest wave of research, however, it now seems to serve a broader range of viewing tastes and needs. These include \u201cbackground\u201d viewing \u2014 sometimes as a replacement for daytime TV \u2014 and videos about a host of random and eclectic topics. For some male participants, YouTube is now their main or only form of viewing.<\/p>\n
\n\tMajor screen time concerns were highlighted in the report, too: The proportion of\u00a0online\u00a0adults who feel the benefits of being online outweigh the risks\u00a0fell\u00a0to 59 percent, down from 72 percent last year. Fewer social media users\u00a0also say that social media\u00a0platforms are good for their mental health\u00a0(36 percent, down from 42 percent).\u00a0Two-thirds of those surveyed admitted to spending too much time on their devices.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Adults\u2019 Media Use and Attitudes Tracker\u00a0is\u00a0a quantitative survey of 7,533 U.K. adults aged over 16. Fieldwork was carried out from September to November 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While British adults are less active on social media, more than half now use AI tools, a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,718,16506,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-509185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-ofcom","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}