TikTok and instant messaging lead 'expressive surge' in Singapore’s 2025 election

A political expression rise in 2020 influenced social media use five years later.

An increased consumption of social media platforms for expressive use was recorded during the general elections (GE) 2025 period, according to an Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) report.

IPS compared social media usage across GE2015, GE2020, and GE2025 to get the mean scores for informational, relational, and expressive uses.

Expressive use rose to 2.75 points in GE2025, an increase of 0.75 points from 1.99 points seen five years prior, IPS said in its Media and Internet Use During General Election 2025 report.

It attributed the increase in expressive use of social media to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research on youth behaviour during crises suggested that social media expression often rises because individuals use social media platforms to improve their well-being, IPS said, citing a 2021 study.

In the Singapore context, a 2022 study observed heightened expressive use during GE2020 when attention shifted to the experiences of marginalised communities, such as migrant workers during the pandemic.

As a result, the continued increase reflected in GE2025 suggested that the pandemic may have prompted the public to express political views on social media platforms.

Another factor that pushed greater expressive use is the increase of communicative features in social media platforms, which increased visibility and persistence of the opinions expressed by users.

For example, TikTok allows users to share expressed opinions and make them more visible and persistent.

Along with TikTok, social networking sites (SNS) and instant messaging platforms were the top three most frequently used platforms across expressive, informational, and relational use during GE2025.

The three platforms for each of the three uses showed a mean score of over 2.5. Informational use recorded a mean score of 2.89, and relational use 2.73.  

Internet and social media use in Singapore

Last year, Singapore emerged as one of the world’s most connected economies, with internet access reaching 95.8% of the population and social media use at 88.2%, according to the Digital 2025: Singapore report by DataReportal, produced with Meltwater and We Are Social.

The report said Singapore had 5.61 million internet users and 5.16 million active social media accounts as of January 2025. Mobile subscriptions rose 6.3% to 10.5 million, equivalent to 179% of the population, reflecting widespread eSIM use and multiple mobile lines per person.

Meanwhile, digital news consumption continued to rise in the city-state, with 85% of residents now getting their news online, according to the Digital News Report 2025 by the Reuters Institute.

The report highlighted a growing shift toward video and image-based platforms, with YouTube and Instagram each gaining four percentage points in weekly news use, and TikTok increasing by three.