Study: Millennials’ news consumption ‘strikingly different’
According to the American Press Institute, worries that young adults are ‘newsless’ are unfounded, but they don’t often directly seek out current events.
The notion that millennials aren’t plugged into news and current events is simply untrue, according to a new study from the American Press Institute’s Media Insight Project .
However, young adults tend to consume information in “strikingly different ways” than generations past. While 85 percent say keeping up with the news is important to them, only 40 percent pay for at least one news-specific app or service.
Perhaps that’s because many don’t want to pay for news, but it’s also because many don’t go directly to news sites to get informed. Often, they “let news come to them,” the study report states. Many follow topics rather than sources—45 percent said they follow five or more hard-news topics—and social media plays a big role:
Millennials also appear to be drawn into news that they might otherwise have ignored because peers are recommending and contextualizing it for them on social networks, as well as on more private networks such as group texts and instant messaging. Once they encounter news, moreover, nearly 9 in 10 report usually seeing diverse opinions, and three-quarters of those report investigating opinions different than their own.
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