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Media United States News

More Than 80% of US Adults Get News On Their Phones (axios.com) 67

Posted by msmash from the changing-patterns dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 80% of U.S. adults get news on their phones -- up from roughly half of Americans just four years ago, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. Most of that growth comes from adults older than 65 whose news consumption via mobile spiked almost 25% in the last year, and has tripled over the past four years.
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More Than 80% of US Adults Get News On Their Phones More

More Than 80% of US Adults Get News On Their Phones

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  • The real question (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But the real question is whether you can call what they get 'news'.

    • Some call it fake news. CNN calls it BREAKING NEWS. Even if it is trivial.

    • I call it porn

    • Chances are you could download an app from whatever source you trust, be it PBS or Breitbart, and have it on your phone. For you, it would be news. It's a far better solution than the bundled in news packages from Google, Apple or Microsoft, that pre-select their favorite sources, like the Guardian (which hardly makes sense: sitting in the US, why should I look at a British paper for what's going on here, regardless of my political opinions? I don't read the Daily Telegraph, The Times or Daily Mail e

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Maritz ( 1829006 )
        Thanks for sharing how you created a little echo-chamber bubble for yourself. Feels good I bet.

  • And 80% of those from Facebook Fake News (Score:3)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:19PM (#54620757)

    Hey, if they can make up statistics, I can too...

  • Mobile not preferred source of news (Score:5, Informative)

    by by (1706743) ( 1706744 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:20PM (#54620769)
    From the study linked in TFA [pewresearch.org], this number (80%) does not represent primary or preferred, but seems to mean "any news":

    Even though a large number of older adults are getting news on mobile devices, that doesn’t mean they prefer it. Across all adults, a clear majority of those who get news on both mobile devices and desktop/laptop computers prefer to get their news on mobile (65%). But those 65 and older are the only age group in which less than half prefer to do so: Only 44% prefer mobile, compared with about three-quarters of those 18 to 29 (77%), figures that have remained steady for both groups over the past year. In the next-highest age group, those 50 to 64, about half now prefer to get their news on mobile (54%), up from about four-in-ten (41%) a year ago.

    (TFS didn't claim that 80% preferred mobile, but I thought it was mildly ambiguous.)

    • (TFS didn't claim that 80% preferred mobile, but I thought it was mildly ambiguous.)

      I read it close to that too. I read it as primarily got their news from mobile.

      Saying that people get some news from mobile doesn't really mean anything.

  • So What? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc DOT famine AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:21PM (#54620781) Journal

    How is this newsworthy? And I actually looked at the article, and there's no additional content there.
     
    It was newsworthy when we switched from newspapers and the nightly news to the internet, for sure. But why would anyone care what device people use to get their internet news? Does the smaller screen of the phone change the meaning? (And no, that's a rhetorical question. There is no additional content in the article which would add anything remotely of value.)

    • Re:So What? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:34PM (#54620929) Homepage Journal

      There's a finite number of advertising dollars, there's a finite number of eyeballs, and you want to target the most eyeballs per dollar of your target market, so you need to know how they're consuming media/news to do that effectively.
       
      Marketing dollars fund the news companies/channels via the ads they buy, and those companies need to know where the viewers are, so that their sales people know what kind of advertising product/space to marketing buyers.
       
      Television and Radio are known markets, very stable, we have a standard 30 second spot for both radio and TV, you can compare advertising costs in different markets very easily. Web is consumed in two different ways (At least) desktop and mobile, which are two very different use cases and factors, much like surfing at your desk at the office vs listening to the radio on your morning commute. You need to accomodate for those form factors and determine if you're going to do a 50/50 split or 90/10 split.
       
      What this PR release is trying to point out is that seniors, who typically have been in the Television/Radio advertising market, have now begun turning to the mobile advertising market, and marketers should be talking increasingly to the mobile sales guy at the NYT/WSJ/Huff Post etc etc, rather than the television sales guy at Fox News, CNN, CNBC etc etc if you want to target all of the 65 and above demographic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mandrel ( 765308 )
        Mobile being so bad for banner ads is encouraging a move to "native ads" (advertorial) and "earned media" (PR), which is an advance for your eyes but not for your mind.
    • More than 80% of U.S. adults get news on their phones, the rest are reading this article.

    • And no, that's a rhetorical question. There is no additional content in the article which would add anything remotely of value.

      I have trouble making sense of the news cycle making heavy use of all three monitors on my desk.

      I'm almost always Googling any significant name or place or context I'm not familiar with, and cross-referencing one article against another, or checking out whether a source is sane by seeking out other material associated with same.

      The medium is the message [wikipedia.org]

      I guarantee you that my unders

  • 80% of U.S.A. adults get "news" on their phones (Score:5, Funny)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:29PM (#54620877)

    And by "news" we really mean "porn".

  • More than 90% of U.S. adults get porn on their phones -- up from roughly half of Americans just four years ago...

  • Not by choice (Score:3)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:31PM (#54620891) Homepage

    I don't get it by choice. Google Now forces bullshit I don't give two fucks about down my throat.

  • _some_ of their news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Wednesday June 14, 2017 @03:35PM (#54620933)
    I get news from a variety of sources. If my mobile device is most handy that's my source. Perhaps the headline should read "80% of US adults get their news on what they use."

    • I get news from a variety of sources. If my mobile device is most handy that's my source. Perhaps the headline should read "80% of US adults get their news on what they use."

      Or, "80% of US adults get their news on what's available in the bathroom."

  • Look, most of that is fake news from the Russian bots.

    This is why I curate my twitter feed and listen to podcasts from the BBC CBC and NPR

    • I'm not sure how the Brits view BBC in terms of objectivity, also unsure how the Canadians view CBC, but NPR definitely has a bias. Mostly of the style where they report on half the story for almost the entire time while leaving the other half either unsaid or at most a short comment or two.

      • Agreed, NPR is definitely right of center. But the Scots and Welsh and Irish would say the same about the BBC.

        • Agreed, NPR is definitely right of center.

          So you don't really listen to NPR. Or you're trying to be sarcastic. Can't tell.

          • I stand by my statement.

            • So basically, you are extreme leftist so anything not at your level is right of your (not the) center.

              I think even NPR would acknowledge they have a leftist bias they would just argue how much that effects their coverage.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Maritz ( 1829006 )
                Anytime I see one of you gimps come out with "extreme leftist" it's a dead giveaway that you're fucking thick.
  • Must be since you can't really read the /. stories on your phone.

  • The reason i get news on my phone (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The reason i get news on my phone, because no matter how many times i disable notifications for the bundled crapware they seem to get turned back on, and part of the included crapware is a shitty news app

    • I got a Nexus 6 P a long time ago. No bundled crapware. But Google still shoves news down my throat. Not that I mind so much. But I like to pick multiple news sources.

  • News consumption?? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We don't eat news, it isn't destroyed after we look at it.

    We watch news, we read news, we listen to news, but we don't CONSUME it.

    (yes, I'm pedantic)

  • on Twitter, but I don't know if he uses a phone.

    If he does, then it's probably one like this official presidential phone [ssl-images-amazon.com]
  • Is my NOAA weather app counted as news? Also there is some t-mobile news widget I don't know how to get rid of does that count too?
  • You cant avoid the news on mobile, they force it front and center. I had no choice but to see google now cards about some shooting today. I NEVER EVER WANT TO SEE THIS SHIT ANYMORE. I just dont care if someone half a continent away got shot.
  • I still use a flip phone. I don't need to be connected to the net every God(tm) damn second of the day. I have a life.
  • ...if you let your phone dictate what news you see..

    Google Now, for example, appears to treat everything on the internet as equally reliable and even if you allow it to "learn" based your phone use, you end up in a dystopian news bubble based on searches and clicks made for other reasons than the continuing and intense interest Google's AI seems to assume you have.
  • Seems like half of Slashdot stories are posted by Captain Obvious. The other half are dupes.

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