The new generation of voters is spending more time online than ever before. According to data from Ofgem’s Online Nation report, people in the UK spent four hours and 30 minutes online every day in 2025 – the equivalent of 56 days a year.
This increasing exposure to a constant stream of content is no longer limited to entertainment. Ofgem reports that social media remains the main gateway to news with three-quarters of 16–24-year-olds using these services. For many young people, their first encounter with a political issue may be through TikTok, as opposed to the traditional broadcast media or newspapers.
Political education in schools remains limited – whilst ‘Citizenship’ is a mandatory subject in secondary schools across the UK and set to expand, the Electoral Commission stated in a 2025 report that only a third of 11–17-year-olds recalled hearing about politics at school in the last year.
Meanwhile, young people are consuming political content daily, as parties battle for visibility through TikTok trends and viral soundbites over informative substance. Young people are not gaining a foundational understanding of the political landscape, and many leave school without critical media literacy skills.
Reform is a unique example of an algorithmic opposition. They won only five seats in the 2024 General Election, making up 14.3% of the total vote share. Whilst this lends to a wider conversation around an arguably outdated first-past-the-post voting system, it is also fascinating to consider the fact that Reform are the biggest political party on TikTok, boasting 470.9k followers compared to Labour’s 244.2k, and the Conservatives’ 169.1k. In Westminster, Reform is marginal, but online, it’s the mainstream.
The online sphere does not simply reflect British politics, it reshapes it. Platforms reward succinct, emotive, digestible content over nuanced, critical analysis. Reform has understood this fundamental truth about platform-native politics whilst its opponents attempt to catch up. Its content – often soundbites around issues such as migration and borders – provokes anger or humour, many times out-performing posts about key policy advancements and stories about positive impacts to local communities from other parties.
On the flip side (though playing to a similar social media strategy as Reform) sits the Green Party. Their growth among younger voters has been supported by a strong digital presence that translates complex structural issues, like climate policy, housing, and public services reform, into clear moral narratives and visually accessible content. The Greens’ content centres around values and urgency for change, framing policy within broader concerns about fairness, sustainability and the future. The party’s online presence demonstrates that resonating with voters does not always have to rely on provoking outrage to mobilise voters; clarity, authenticity and emotive messaging can also land well in algorithmic spaces. In their own ways, both Reform and the Greens show that understanding how to ‘play’ the digital landscape is highly important.
For political parties, the opportunities and risks are clear: meeting the next generation of voters where they are is critical. The press release-led communications strategies of the past will only increasingly struggle to reach them, so parties must adapt.
The risks are just as significant. When a political ‘win’ means producing the most viral video, parties are incentivised to prioritise emotive soundbites over information. Manifestos go unread and the likelihood of someone making a fully informed voting choice diminishes. Over time, this risks creating an electorate that feels politically energised, but lacks the tools to interrogate claims from parties, or effectively compare policy pledges.
The standards of political communication online must be raised. Engaging content can be informative, and parties have a democratic responsibility to ensure that the purpose of their posts is first and foremost to educate, prioritising this over maximising engagement and trying to win over the algorithm. If political actors are choosing to operate in spaces where short-form video and algorithmic reach influence public understanding, then accuracy, transparency and context must be built into that content.
The question is no longer about whether politics belongs in the online sphere, as this is already the case. If the voting age is lowered to 16, as government plans suggest, then both our education system and our political communications ecosystem must evolve. Expanding the franchise without adequate reform to online safety and tackling misinformation risks widening the gap between participation and political literacy. We must take an already engaged generation and equip them with the tools to navigate and challenge the saturated online political landscape.
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