How the UK Really Uses the Internet in 2026

Ofcom published its annual Adults' Media Use and Attitudes report this week, surveying 7,533 UK adults between September and November 2025. It covers AI adoption, trust in news, online security habits, social media behaviours, and digital exclusion. The full report is 46 pages - this is my bite-size take on the findings I found most interesting, with some thoughts on why they matter.

People know their data is collected - they just don't know how, or what it's for

Knowing data is collected is not the same as understanding the system it feeds.

• 77% know websites use cookies - but only 54% know social media activity is tracked, 45% smartphone apps, and just 31% are aware of all the main methods
• Awareness of algorithmic tailoring has fallen from 85% to 76% in a single year
• Younger adults are the least informed despite generating the most data: only 24% of 16–24s know all the ways their data is collected, versus 31% overall
• Only 18% of adults recognise that user data - not just advertising - is how social media platforms are funded

• 34% are comfortable with personalised content; 37% are not
• 27% say they are never happy for companies to collect their data regardless of the circumstances - rising to 47% among those aged 75+
• 21% received a data breach notification in the past year, the second most common negative online experience after scam messages (37%)

My thoughts: As platforms get better at tracking and targeting, we're becoming less aware of how they work - not more. The young adult gap is the part worth dwelling on: 16–24 year olds are on these platforms the most, so their data is worth more to advertisers, meaning they're being targeted most precisely by systems they understand the least. You can't make informed choices about your privacy if you don't know what's actually being collected.

Bad security habits have measurable consequences

The report links specific security behaviours directly to rates of harm - not in theory, but in self-reported outcomes.

• 26% of adults reuse passwords across accounts
• 16–24 year olds are the most likely to do so, at 34% - the same age group that is most digitally active
• Online banking users relying on browser autofill were more likely to have had financial or personal information stolen (11%) vs those who typed manually (5%)

My thoughts: 26% still reusing passwords in 2026 - after years of password managers being widely available - suggests the "just use better passwords" approach has a ceiling. Password managers work, but only for people who already have the confidence to set them up and trust them with everything. That's not most people. We've spent two decades trying to fix passwords and the numbers haven't moved much. The more honest question is why we're still starting from passwords at all. Passkeys and passwordless login remove the problem rather than patch around it - and through open standards like FIDO2, they're supported across password managers like Bitwarden and 1Password, not just Apple and Google. The shift is already underway, it's just not evenly distributed yet.

We think we're better at spotting scams than we are

Overall, 89% of online adults say they feel confident as an internet user. But when tested against actual scenarios, that confidence didn't hold up when it came to sponsored search results.

• Sponsored search had the biggest gap: 81% felt confident, but only 52% answered correctly
• The 48% who got it wrong attributed results to relevance or popularity - not paid placement
• The gap was sharpest among 25–34 year olds, where 47% were confident but wrong
• Younger adults were best at spotting fake social media profiles (88% of 16–24 year olds), but worst at recognising sponsored results

My thoughts: Nearly half of adults can't distinguish paid placements from organic results - which means when they click the top search result, they might just be clicking on whoever had the biggest advertising budget, not the best option. That's how you end up buying an overpriced product or trusting a comparison site that's paid to recommend certain brands over others. The 25–34 gap is worth noting too - that age group likely feels the most comfortable online, which may be exactly why they're caught out. Confidence can make you less cautious, not more.

We use the news but we don't really trust it

But that usage figure masks a fragmented picture. When you break down how people engage with mainstream news, only a small minority are genuinely trusting.

• 38% use mainstream media but sometimes question what they see - arguably healthy media literacy
• 1 in 5 always question its accuracy
• 16% either reject mainstream news entirely or have disengaged from it

My thoughts: News outlets have editorial positions, commercial pressures, and ownership structures that influence what gets covered and how. The framing of a story - what's included, what's left out, how it's worded - can shift how you think about an issue without you realising it. Engaging critically doesn't mean distrusting everything, it just means staying in the driving seat.

People are outsourcing their fact-checking to the comments section

Among social media users who do think about whether news is accurate, the most common approaches are:

• 43% compare with other sources
• 42% check the original source
• And close behind:

Other users' reactions are being used as a proxy for truth - a fragile signal when 56% of social media users say they've encountered false or misleading news in the past year.

My thoughts: This one is more nuanced than it first looks. On some platforms - Reddit, for example - upvoted comments often do correct misinformation, with sources and pushback. But on Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube, the comments that rise tend to be the most emotionally charged, not the most accurate. The problem is that most people aren't consciously choosing which type of comment section to trust - they're just scanning reactions as a quick gut check, regardless of platform. That's where it breaks down. Using crowd reaction as a credibility signal is only as reliable as the crowd, and that varies enormously.

Feelings about being online are getting worse

Three measures tracked over time all moved in the same direction this year.

• Perceived benefits dropped from 72% to 59% in a single year
• 52% of 16–24 year olds feel the benefits outweigh risks - lower than any other age group, including 75 year olds (63%)
• Women (54%) are consistently less positive than men (64%)
• Social media and mental health sentiment fell back to 2022 levels, erasing two years of improvement
• Active participation - posting, commenting, sharing - fell 12 percentage points in a single year

My thoughts: 16–24 year olds are more pessimistic about whether the benefits outweigh the risks than 75 year olds are. The generation that grew up entirely online feels worse about it than people who came to it late in life. That says something about what sustained exposure to social media actually does to how people feel about the internet - and that feeling tends to grow the more time you spend on them. The 12-point drop in active participation tells a similar story: fewer posts, fewer comments, fewer shares. People are still scrolling, but fewer are joining the conversation.

The generational internet is two completely different places

Platform use by age shows how sharply segmented the internet has become.

• TikTok: 83% of 16–24 year olds vs just 7% of 75 year olds
• Facebook: the only platform more popular with 75+ (81%) than 16–24s (55%)
• WhatsApp: the one consistent thread - 81% of 16–24s and 78% of 75+ use it

My thoughts: With the exception of WhatsApp, different age groups are barely on the same platforms. A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old are getting their news, their entertainment, and their view of the world from almost entirely separate places - which means they're also being exposed to different information, and different misinformation. That's worth thinking about when we talk about why different generations seem to have such different perspectives on the same events.

AI adoption doubled in a year

The headline number is hard to ignore. Just two years ago, roughly one in four UK adults said they used AI tools. By the end of 2025 that figure had jumped to more than half.

• 79% of 16–24 year olds use AI tools, and 74% of 25–34 year olds
• Usage drops steadily with age - down to just 12% among those aged 75 and over

• AI isn't just being adopted deliberately - it's arriving passively
• 75% of online adults read AI-generated search summaries at least sometimes
• That includes 54% of people who say they don't use AI chatbots at all

My thoughts: More than half of people who say they don't use AI are regularly reading AI-generated content - they just don't know it's AI, or they don't count search summaries as "using AI." This means adoption figures in surveys are likely understated, but for most people, AI is already there whether they've chosen it or not.

Final thoughts

Most people know their data is being collected - they just don't know how, or what it's used for. Passwords are still failing people who were never set up to manage them properly. Search results are quietly blending ads with answers. News is being filtered through platforms with their own incentives. And AI is already reaching people who don't think they use it. None of this is accidental, and none of it is going away. The bigger question is who's responsible for closing that gap - and right now it's falling on individuals to figure it out for themselves. That's where schools and government awareness campaigns matter: digital literacy shouldn't be something you pick up by accident.

The full report is available on Ofcom's website.