The reverse of this is of course baby boomer generations who hate what the news has become (TV and Newspaper) yet slavishly consume it anyway, because of a lifetime habit.<p>Whenever I see an older relative frothing about some stupid article in the newspaper, or some pointless piece on TV - I just say 'why not switch it off? Why buy the paper anyway?'<p>I don't watch the news or read newspapers anymore, unless I happen to be in the vicinity of either by accident. If something important happens, I find out. Everyone does. Neighbours, people you work with - they're always delighted to share news you didn't hear about, and they don't drop in ads.<p>In the case of TV news and newspapers - lets say 6 hours a week glued to the talking heads and 4 hours a week in the paper = 500 hours a year - 12 24hr days in total, or 24 12hr days. All so they can sell your eyeballs to the highest bidder. Who wouldn't like 24 extra days time to do as they please with?<p>Stop paying attention to the media. You end up selling your time for pennies worth of benefit.
The one part I can't believe is that 86% of people think they're "Usually [seeing] diverse opinions through social media".<p>The "filter bubble" is going to get worse and worse, it seems. Has anyone had any good experiences where a piece of information technology (forum, reddit, twitter, insta, etc) didn't encourage a filter bubble?
Let's be real here, national mainstream electronic media is somewhere between outright propaganda (yesterday's revelation and pictures of ISIS cross dressing soldiers retreating) and inane press release political fodder (sources in the White House report some BS that everyone knew anyway), and tabloid stuff.<p>In the old days 1994, there was at least some journalistic content on the news with Peter Jennings.<p>If you give a hoot about current events, the news isn't where you scratch that itch!
Interestingly they declined to define 'news' .. perhaps the study proper did, though it's such a nebulous term that it's probably moot in any case.<p>Facebook is cited as being a primary source of news, yet items that I see pop up in the 'news' block on FB are generally of the fashion, entertainment and asinine activities of alleged celebrities variety... not news by my definition.
'Millenials don't read newspapers' - or, as I like to call it, 'Another article telling you what young people do sourced from every possible avenue other than asking young people'.<p>Under 30s are the biggest readers of the local newspapers at my university, and the same can be said for my routing train travel and visits around the area. Young people are using an amazingly diverse selection of news sources that many older generations are simplly unaware of, or unwilling to admit.<p>not to mention, i don't care who you ask, if you mix 'social action and entertainment' with news, the end result is something i would avoid like the plague.
So they are worried that have lost the power to persuade people??<p>Why would I want to know about a hurricane the other part of the world? IMO 99% of the news are junk, but is my opinion. Imagine all the time you lost on being brain-washed.