Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google

https://www.businessinsider.com/nearly-half-genz-use-tiktok-instagram-over-google-search-2022-7

by monsieurpng • 4 years ago

10 18 4 years ago

Ambolia• 4 years ago

Google is very curated at this point, there are current topics that simply won't appear on any search. Usually in social media they are possible to find, either directly or using indirect terms.

Rochus• 4 years ago

This seems indeed to be the case; over the last months I compared what I find with google and duckduckgo, and certain facts, which can be found easily on duckduckgo, just don't or only very sparsely appear in google's results.

firecall• 4 years ago

'Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan told the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference that according to Google's internal studies, "something like almost 40% of young people when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram."'

This seems like a terrible search experience though!

I just tried searching for local lunch places to me in Instagram, and the results are useless!

I'll have to try TikTok I guess, but I dont see how a platform full of short-form video is going to give me a sensible result about where to eat!

What am I missing here!?

andromeda-brain• 4 years ago

I just recently did a similar search, “things to do in Austin” on a bored weekend, and my go-to search platform was TikTok. I liked that the content was visual and engaging and has an authentic feel, vs my expectation that the first 100 Google results would be the same Top 10 articles of the most generic tourist traps in the city. In fact, I just did the search now and that’s exactly what I got.

ratww2• 4 years ago

Yeah, definitely that. To see pictures of the places in Google Maps or Search it takes several clicks, and I can't compare them side by side. Some are obsolete. Lots of pictures I don't care about added by business owners. Not really the best experience.

RGamma• 4 years ago

This seems like a terrible search experience though!

I suspect IG/TikTok users are on average terrible computer users too. It's not like growing up with smartphones teaches you anything about dealing with or evaluating information systems; you're a consumer who is fed things and your success entirely depends on a small elite to feed you correctly.

lma21• 4 years ago

I have tried TikTok and honestly it's perfect to find cool places to eat at or even when visiting a new city.

dylkil• 4 years ago

I'll have to try TikTok I guess

do because you will be very surprised at how good it is

naturalauction• 4 years ago

"something like almost 40% of young people when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram."

That might mean something like looking to see what restaurants friends have posted about, not necessarily searching.

ok_dad• 4 years ago

This and looking at local town tags to find neat little restaurants and stuff; they’re all on Instagram for sure. My wife finds so much great local food on Instagram. Google just shows the chains and fast food garbage.

tomstuart• 4 years ago

A thread investigating the source of this claim: https://twitter.com/Vortex_Egg/status/1548047874411245570

andybak2• 4 years ago

@dang - this warrants a title edit at the very least, if not actually a flagging.

(Conclusion from the Twitter thread: The original story was actually "When they are looking for a place for lunch they go to TikTok or Instagram. That's it".)

p4bl0• 4 years ago

The fact that Google's result are seemingly decreasing in quality surely doesn't help. But maybe that's just me? Are others having the feeling?

andybak2• 4 years ago

To some degree but I disagree that is the issue here.

EDIT - however seems the article is mostly bullshit: https://twitter.com/Vortex_Egg/status/1548047888931905540

ratww2• 4 years ago

I'm definitely feeling this too. Finding documentation on some libraries I use has become impossible even with the site: operator. Older articles don't show up anymore. I also have to quotes the hell out of things to get proper results.

lnsru• 4 years ago

Google delivers worse and worse results. I have a hypothesis, that’s my problem searching in 3 different languages depending on topics. But also simple English engineering inquiries I must occasionally repeat on bing or DuckDuckGo.

dncornholio• 4 years ago

This is just false? Not even going to read this trash.

Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google

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