A new study shows that 60% of Americans get their news from television – which might seem like a lot. Well, it is! But, when you break it down by age, most of that 60% is comprised of the blue-hair set – which should explain why grandpa couldn’t stop repeating Bill O’Reilly’s talking points during your family’s Fourth of July bbq. So where does everyone else get their news? Spoiler: you are doing it right now.
The chart below shows where carious age groups get their news according to the study from Pew Research Center (chart via Mashable). Note the difference in online vs. tv for people under 50 vs those over.
I guess this explains why the local tv news spends 10 minutes talking about weather even though you can get all the info in under 2 seconds on your phone.
Also of note, newspapers are about as popular with people under 65 as a rotary phone.
But, even though people are getting more and more of their news from sources on the internet, that does not mean they trust the information (weird, since clearly everything on the internet is true). While nearly 1 in 4 people trust local news organizations a lot, only 4 percent of people say the same of what they see on social media.
