Internet Surpasses Television as Main News Source for Young Adults

This seems a good news for many of us who are in the online business field.

A study from the Pew Research Center shows that the Internet has become the main national and international news source for people ages 18 to 29. This has also shown, indirectly, that the Internet is now the main information source for these people, and the opportunity of approaching our potential customers online will be greater from time to time.

This research was conducted among 1,500 adults from different age groups of 18 – 29, 30 – 49, 50 – 64 and above 65 years old. Below are the graphs illustrating the trend of the public’s media selection when it comes to national and international news:

Graph 1: Internet as the Main News Source

Graph 2: Internet as the Main News Source

In 2010, 65% of people younger than 30 cited the Internet as their go-to source for news, showing a dramatic increase of 31% from 34% in 2007. On the other hand, of the same age group, the number who considers television as their main news source has dropped from 68% to 52% during that time.

The same trend also applies across all age groups. 41% of all the 1,500 adults surveyed cited the Internet as their main source for national and international news, which is up 17% from 2007. Meanwhile, the number who cited television as their main news source has decreased from 74% to 66% from 2007 to 2010.

From Graph 1, it can be seen that the percentage of people using the Internet to source for news is nearly doubling of the number in 2007. Today, even though television is still considered as the main news source for those who are 30 and above, this number is experiencing a modest decrease from year to year. It is believed that the Internet will soon take over television as the main source for national and international news in the near future.

These numbers fall in line with the rise of the personalized news stream online. Both Facebook’s News Feed and Twitter launched in summer 2006 and both have seen explosive growth since 2008. Tweet counts have increased from 5,000 daily in 2007 to 90 million daily in 2010, while Facebook went from 30 million users in 2007 to more than 500 million users today.

In addition, the television viewership culture has shifted in the past few years. Today, people have more viewing options than ever before, like media streaming services on the web and Internet-TV connection devices like Roku and Boxee.

Have you seen the great potential opportunity to put your business online now?  Let’s get started: www.serverfreak.com

Contributed by Meghan Peters, summarized by WOW.