30% of Americans Get News From Facebook According To Pew Research Poll

An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent Pew Research poll a third of Americans get their news while they 'like' things. 'All in all, then, it may be the very incidental nature of the site that ultimately exposes more people to news there,' Pew said. 'Indeed, the more time one spends on the site, the more likely they are to get news there.'"

Applies to all events?

[RunFatBoy.net]

Facebook makes me personally more engaged and thoughtful of all events, both news and personal.

It's amazing how I can see someone that I connected with on Facebook in real life and have a vague notion of what they are up to. It makes me feel connected. The same goes for news; my friends all read the new several times a day and therefore gives me a hand on the pulse of current events, even though that's not my intent.

Re:Applies to all events?

[Garridan]

I get my news from Slashdot. My wife tells me I have a very republican-leaning family -- if I was on facebook, I'd probably be exposed to a larger breadth of opinion. Confirmation bias? I try to look elsewhere for news... but ultimately, I keep coming back to the places that present the stories that I care about.

Re:Applies to all events?

[Mitchell314]

Odd, I've had the complete opposite experience. I'm politically libertarian, but I loathe to ever admit it in public due to the connotation of them being stuck-up pricks that love to idealize the world in 'flawless' little politico-economic frameworks. And in my experiences, that stereotype is not entirely unfounded. When your first reaction is to pick a stance on something based solely on 'minimizing government', as opposed to starting from first principles or from inductive reasoning drawing on history, you've got a problem. You've got an ivory-toweritis problem. I'm libertarian because on average my own path of reasoning tends to draw me to free market solutions and socially-liberal fiscally conservative stances (which I'm not going to be arrogant enough to claim "how the world really is", that's elitist talk), but I never felt the same with my political 'peers'.

Re:Applies to all events?

[NixieBunny]

Today's Facebook echo chamber was echoing a lot of Lou Reed songs. That was all the news that mattered today.