Trends on Tuesday: Digital News Trends and Mobile

The Pew Research Center recently released a report on “12 Trends Shaping Digital News.” Some of these trends show that mobile devices continue to affect how the public consumes the news. The report found:

• 19% of Americans saw news on a social network “yesterday” in 2012, more than double the 9% who had done so in 2010.
• 64% of tablet owners and 62% of smartphone owners said they got news on their devices in 2012. 73% of tablet owners read in-depth articles at least sometimes, including 19% who did so daily.
• In 2012, 60% of tablet news users and 61% of smartphone news users get news mostly from their device’s browser.
• In 2012, 31% of tablet news users said that they spent more time with news since getting their device.
• 27% of Americans who watched the November 2012 election night returns “dual-screened” the event, using the internet and television at the same time to follow the live coverage.
• While they are much lighter news consumers generally and have largely abandoned the print news product, young people get news on mobile devices to similar degrees as older users according to 2012 data.
• ’Grazing’ the news has become more popular with younger adults and online readers: In 2012, 57% of Americans said they get news when they want, while 37% get news at regular times.

These trends are proof that agencies need to innovate for changing news consumption habits. By taking a Mobile First approach and creating structured and open content models agencies can adjust as mobile news consumption becomes more prevalent.