If you have been on social media lately, you have likely heard the term, “ok boomer”, poking fun at the baby boomers generation (1946 to 1964). If you’ve visited the social media site TikTok in the past week, you have also probably seen the recent war between Gen. Y (1981-1994) and Gen. Z (1997-2012) over important subjects, such as, who invented scrunchies, or which hair part is more superior (the side, or the middle part).
From an outside perspective, it is amusing to watch the constant bickering between generations. However, when you dive deeper, it’s not just scrunchies, hair parts, or beliefs, where we differ.
It is important to understand the differences in viewpoints between generations from a technological standpoint, specifically news. In today’s society, news is everywhere you look. In order to make it easier to understand, it has been broken up into three categories of news distribution: online platforms, television, and newspapers. Although all of the generations have access to these forms of media, it is surprising how different age groups choose to use each one.
Social Media and Online News Access:
According to Antonis Kalogeropoulos, a research fellow, and writer for Reuters Institute through the University of Oxford, Gen. Y and Gen. Z are more apt to be getting their news through mobile devices, based on their vast understanding of the internet, and in particular, social media.
In his article titled “How Younger Generations Consume News Differently”, Kalogeropoulos explains how most of these media sources are “on-demand”, and algorithmically personalized, causing these platforms to capture the interest of each consumer, while also fitting the mold of their interests.
Another reason for the lack of interest elsewhere, is the fact that the younger generation has access to news aggregators on their smartphones, such as Flipboard and the pre-installed Apple News app that comes with all iPhones. Whether they want to or not, those who own smartphones will always be in contact with some form of news. No matter if their phones are on or off, the news will be one tap away, with the latest headlines popping up as notifications, or the simple opening of an app.
Whether they want to or not, those who own smartphones will always be in contact with some form of news.
Older Generations Online:
Even though most of the older generations find it difficult to use smartphones and social media, they still hold an online presence. According to the article “How Americans get their news”, looking at a study regarding the modern news consumer, 38% of adults often get their news from online sources.
Older generations, such as Gen. X (1965 to 1980), tend to use only two media sources. These include adults who get the news through websites/apps, a small percentage of them who go to social media, and an even smaller percentage of adults who use both. However, the device that they get the information on is typically different from that of Gen. Y and Gen. Z, that being desktops rather than mobile phones.
This article also brings to attention why someone is more likely to use a mobile phone, or desktop, when accessing their digital news. Out of people between the ages of 18-29, 70% prefer to use their mobile devices to gather digital news. For the other generations, 53% of those ages 30-49, 29% of those ages 50-64, and just 16% of those ages 65+ use mobile devices.
Even with the variation in choice, the two groups are quite similar when comparing their news attitudes and habits. These similarities include loyalty to news sources, trust in information from news organizations, discussion of news with others, and level of engagement with news on social media.
News Through Television:
Despite social media’s slow take over on how generations consume news, it is interesting to see in these studies that, according to all sources, TV is still the most popular form of intaking the news when compared to all other forms of media.
“57% of U.S. adults often get TV-based news, either from local TV (46%), cable (31%), network (30%), or some combination of the three. This same pattern emerges when people are asked which platform they prefer – TV sits at the top, followed by the web, with radio and print trailing behind.”
Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthel and Elisa Shearer
When looking closely at the percentages given by the article, we can assume that these numbers are not guaranteed to stay the same. If we were to look at the consumption of news from television generationally, we can see that the majority of TV news consumers are those ages 50-64, and those 65+. Contrasting that, the younger generations are seen to watch much less news through television, with only 45% of those ages 30-49, and 27% of those ages 18-29.
As time continues, it looks as though the most popular news media may change from television to social media, based on younger generations. It is also possible that television, in the future, may meet the same fate as the printed newspapers.
The Use of Print Today:
Although print newspapers were popular for many years, with the introduction of social media, as well as television, its usage dramatically decreased. Based on the article “How Americans get their news”, 20% of adults still use printed newspapers today, a change from the 27% they had calculated in 2013.
Although both the oldest and the youngest generations showed a decrease in reading the newspaper, there is still a significant gap between them. We can see that the older generation (65+) used printed news two times more than the younger generation (ages 18-29). Based on the information above, and assuming the decrease will continue, it seems likely that newspapers will no longer be a form of news consumption in the future.
The Takeaway:
Understanding our differences as generations is extremely important for society as a whole. Sure, we will always have differences in our beliefs, and we may always disagree on when scrunchies made their comeback, but in order to move forward we have to be able to dive deeper into each generation specifically.
More importantly, we have to be able to watch the rise and fall of different news media platforms, and how they relate to the generational change. It’s only when we notice this change, will we be able to adapt and continue to make sure we are able to stay both connected and informed.
Journalism 2.0 