Young People Not Following the News

The Shorenstein Center released a report today on the news-consumption habits of young people, and not surprisingly, found that many don't pay much attention to the news, and what news they get comes from TV rather than print media or the Internet. From the press release on the report:

The Internet is making inroads as a news source. Relative to other media, teens and young adults make more use of Internet-based news than do older adults. The caveat is that overall interest in news is so much lower among younger Americans that Internet-based news, in absolute terms, gets roughly the same attention from older adults as it does from young adults and teens.

So yes, the Internet is an important news source for young people, but it's not taking over as fast as everyone thinks.

One bit of analysis: the report focused on traditional news stories, such as Congressional action on Iraq. It didn't really probe the question of how much non-traditional news and information young people get from the Internet versus other sources.