MediaPost reported on a survey they conducted which asked Millennials (ages 14 - 34) how they access the news. The results are interesting.
TV is still tops with young people, with 73 percent saying they rely on TV to keep up with the news.
A close second, which shouldn't be surprising, is Facebook, with 67 percent saying they regularly check FB to see what's happening. Twitter keeps about a third of young people informed, the survey found.
The survey didn't differentiate whether those who rely on social media follow the FB pages and tweets of legitimate news sources, or if they rely on links, re-tweets or paraphrasing from their social media "friends." Where they get their news on FB or Twitter can make a difference in the accuracy of what they're seeing, and that should be of concern. We know how easy it is to manipulate what gets re-posted.
While social media enables us to select our own news content based on our interests and those of our friends, it also risks giving us a narrowly-focussed slant on what's happening in the world.
Watch TV news or thumb through a newspaper and you'll, hopefully, get a broad view of what's going on. Or, at least, it's there if you want it.
So while it's great that young people want to know what's happening in the news, it's important that they get their information from sources that provide a broad and reliable perspective. FB and Twitter may not always be the best sources for that broad and reliable view.
Comments