Zeno Thinks: The “TikTok election” isn’t happening – and here’s why

Young voters are more likely to copy their parents than pay attention to Labour’s meme wars or Farage’s viral videos

Today, the nation heads to the polls. Or some of it does. 

More than one survey suggests that a significant proportion of young people will not be casting their vote – Ipsos has just 46% of 18-34-year-olds as certain to vote.

So we commissioned a pulse survey yesterday among potential voters aged 18-24 to understand whether they will be voting – and what might be influencing them.

First, the usual caveats – this is very much a snapshot, degree of self-sampling and so on. But our findings suggest that only 50% of young people say they will definitely vote, in line with other polls. For context, a further 23% said they would probably vote, 11% that they probably wouldn’t and 9% that they definitely wouldn’t. Some 7% were still unsure.

Failure to connect

Reading between the lines, the lack of enthusiasm is palpable. 

YouGov has found that the biggest reason to vote Labour is to oust the Conservatives - hardly a positive, active choice. Likewise, our research suggests younger people may see voting as something you should do rather than want to do. Because although Labour would be the biggest party (25% of respondents), followed by the Greens (15%), with Reform (10%) beating the Conservatives (5% - the same as the SNP), the second biggest ‘party’ is … “I Don’t Know” (17%). And this is a survey conducted the day before polling day.

Fuelling this lack of enthusiasm is the sense that none of the parties’ pledges are connecting. When we asked young people which issues pulled from the manifestos they felt most strongly about, the consensus was, essentially, “Meh”. The largest two by far are the vague “economic growth” and equally broad “investing in the NHS” (17%) – topics where no party is going to campaign for the opposite. 

Even what seem to be more young-people-centric policies, like support for first-time buyers (9%) and climate action (9%), fail to get widespread support. (Immigration control, for context, comes at 6%.)

We only asked about the issues in party manifestos, which indicates that the pledges aren’t connecting with what’s important to young people. And what’s important to young people simply isn’t in the manifestos - we didn’t ask about rent controls, for example. (As an aside, low turnout among the young makes it easy to ignore their needs, which then looks to dampen turnout further; so do vote, and make sure parties cannot ignore you.)

Check your sources

Of course, young people can only make a decision on what the parties are promising if they hear about it. So we asked where they get their information. 

For all the death of journalism claims, online newspapers and magazines (30%) are the first port of call, followed - perhaps surprisingly - by TV (27%) and – perhaps less so - search (26%). 

These far outweigh the more supposedly youth-centric social channels of TikTok (19%), YouTube (19%) and X (18%), with Instagram (13%) and Facebook (10%) a step behind. 

Although a slightly higher proportion has seen or joined in discussion about the election on these channels (TikTok 24%, X 21%, Instagram and Facebook 18%), with the end-to-end encrypted world of WhatsApp (18%) an important forum here, it does underline that different channels have different uses and impacts.

We can’t assess how influential each of these sources are, but the much-vaunted “TikTok election”, Labour’s meme war, and the apparent high-profile TikTok presence of Nigel Farage may be less effective than assumed. 

There’s almost certainly something akin to a sales funnel at play – a would-be voter may become aware of a party or politician through their social feed, but they are in the consideration stage, so turn to trusted editorial sources.

Mum (or dad) knows best

Indeed, we have to ask how influential any form of media is on young people.

We can’t prove causation, but our most striking finding is that three quarters of young voters believe they’re going to vote the same way as one or both parents. Political choice is less about social media influencers and more about the biggest influence on young people’s lives – their parents or carers. Or, perhaps more accurately, environment and upbringing are incredibly powerful in forming attitudes.

This complicates the inter-generation warfare cliche, or the stereotype of younger people being progressive and disagreeing with their more conversative parents. It suggests that political affiliation is still, fundamentally, a question of identity.

So what is the lesson here for communicators? Perhaps it is that while the media – new and old – moves ever faster, people’s minds are changed at a slower pace. Of course, social media matters, but not quite as much as the opinions of those who brought you into the world – or the social and economic circumstances in which they raised you.

In other words, one of the best ways to reach young people is by impressing their older relatives.