Table 2.

Responses (%) of the 23,482 young respondents to the international survey “Social Media & COVID-19” about the social media platforms usually used, the sources of information regarding COVID-19 and its vaccine, and the characteristics of COVID-19 content and shared content in the three income groups (according to the World Bank classification of income level).

	HIC N = 9475	UMIC N = 8000	LMIC N = 6007	HIC vs. UMIC	HIC vs. LMIC	UMIC vs. LMIC
	%	%	%	p-Value *	p-Value *	p-Value *
Which social media platforms do you usually use? (the top five most frequent)
YouTube	59.3	73.0	65.3	<0.01	0.32	<0.01
Instagram	59.2	72.3	59.6	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
Facebook	55.7	71.8	76.1	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
TikTok	33.9	35.0	20.9	0.13	<0.01	<0.01
Twitter	31.4	39.4	37.3	<0.01	0.01	0.01
Average number of social media platforms (SD)	2.9 (2.0)	3.4 (1.9)	3.0 (2.0)	0.02	0.17	<0.01
For COVID-19 news, information, and updates, to which of the following sources do you go to first?
National or international traditional media (newspapers, television, or radio, including websites)	54.2	60.3	59.5	<0.01	<0.01	0.34
Content provided by social media	78.8	86.9	89.9	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
Content shared person to person	39.6	41.7	36.6	0.01	<0.01	<0.01
When a vaccine becomes available, which of the following sources would you look to first for information?
National or international traditional media (newspapers, television, or radio, including websites)	46.0	53.2	53.7	<0.01	<0.01	0.56
Content provided by social media	78.0	88.3	88.7	<0.01	<0.01	0.49
Content shared person to person	29.8	28.6	27.6	0.08	<0.01	0.22
When checking COVID 19 content, I pay specific attention to COVID-19 content that: (the top five most frequent answers)
is scientific	51.3	59.3	54.7	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
is relevant to me	37.4	39.8	31.5	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
includes/is an article	36.2	37.4	31.2	0.10	<0.01	<0.01
is concerning	27.2	37.8	32.8	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
includes/is a video	20.1	26.6	33.5	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
I am most likely to share content with my networks that: (the top five most frequent answers)
is scientific	36.4	47.6	50.7	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
is relevant to me	32.1	43.6	34.7	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
includes/is an article	25.8	29.1	31.3	<0.01	<0.01	0.01
is concerning	23.3	34.0	29.4	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01
includes/is a video	18.8	23.7	33.1	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01

HIC: High-income countries; LMIC: Low-middle-income countries; UMIC: Upper-middle-income countries; SD: standard deviation. * p-value for the comparison test (i.e., chi-square test or t-test for the number of platforms usually used). Since the Bonferroni’s correction for multiple comparisons was adopted, a p-value < 0.02 (0.05/3) indicates significant differences among pairs.