Teenagers are more inclined than their elders to get news from nontraditional sources such as social media and influencers, heralding a generational shift in how people seek out information.
A national study by the Media Insight Project finds 36% of U.S. adults say they get news from social media at least once a day. But for people ages 13 to 17, that number rises to 57%.
Similarly, 43% of adults say they get information on national issues and events from influencers or independent content creators at least "sometimes," compared with 57% of teenagers. The project is a collaboration among The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute and journalism schools at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland.
The new poll points to the pervasiveness of social media in teenagers’ lives and shows how more teens are consuming their news from these platforms or independent content creators, rather than directly from national or local news sources.
While Americans haven't abandoned traditional journalism, they are reevaluating what sources they trust, said Robyn Tomlin, executive director of the American Press Institute.
"Traditional national and local outlets continue to stand out as a trusted source, but people, especially younger audiences, are also building relationships with younger creators they believe are transparent and authentic,” Tomlin said. "That reality has enormous implications for the future of news.”
Besides social media, teenagers are also more likely to turn to search engines and artificial intelligence chatbots as they hunt for news.
The survey found that about 4 in 10 teens get news daily from search, while about 2 in 10 say that about AI chatbots.
There's little difference among age groups in people who said they get news from digital sites or apps, and television and streaming, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults and a similar share of teenagers are getting news from TV at least once a day, with a similar share tuning into digital news sites.
"The idea that television is going away is a misapprehension,” said Tom Rosenstiel, journalism professor at the University of Maryland who worked on the survey. "Watching news through video is not going away. It's changing. The way you see it on YouTube is different than on the ‘CBS Evening News.’”
Despite the fact that many teenagers are getting news from influencers and AI, many have a healthy dose of skepticism.
Though teens are more likely than adults to say they have "a great deal of confidence” in the information they are getting from AI chatbots, relatively few have high confidence in AI’s output. Just 11% of teenagers have a high level of certainty in the information coming from AI, compared with 4% of adults.
Teens are also more confident in their ability to determine whether something was made by a human or AI. About one-third of teens expressed a high level of confidence in their ability to distinguish AI-generated content from human-generated content, compared with about 2 in 10 adults.
When it comes to influencers, there are similar doubts. Only 12% of teenagers also have "a great deal of confidence” in the information they get from independent creators or influencers, whether that’s coming from TV, social media or other sources. That’s higher than the 6% of U.S. adults who say the same, but still very low.
Not surprisingly, the survey also found that teenagers are more interested in news about celebrities, music, movies, sports and other entertainment. Adults have more interest in political news, business issues or the economy.
For teenagers and adults alike, there’s a significant news fatigue, particularly around political news, Rosenstiel said. Most U.S. adults and teenagers say they "often” or "sometimes” try to avoid news stories about national government, politics and about 6 in 10 say they try to sidestep news related to President Donald Trump.
"People are tired of the feeling that things are spinning out of control that they’re very judicious in what they’re spending their time on,” Rosenstiel said.
Rosenstiel said many teens also hunt for news and information in different ways. They are much less likely than adults to say they avoid celebrity news or news that is delivered via social media. It’s possible, Rosenstiel added, that the most important journalism for some people is what helps them live their lives, even if it falls outside conventional news sources.
"Part of the problem for traditional journalism," Rosenstiel said, "is the traditional journalism definition of what is real news.”
