U.S. Teenagers Have Little Interest in News, Study Says

From Reuters, July 10, 2007
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

War and politics are largely ignored by American teenagers, according to a Harvard University study released on Tuesday, which found that 60 percent of them pay little attention to daily news.

Researchers interviewed 1,800 people between January and March and found that 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 said they pay almost no attention to news every day. Another 32 percent said they pay only casual attention to one news source a day.

“News is not something that gets a lot of time or attention or interest from teens,” said Thomas Patterson, a professor of government and the press at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Among people aged 18 to 30, the poll found 48 percent said they are inattentive to daily news. Only 23 percent of older Americans said they largely ignore news.

In general, soft stories about celebrities interest young people more than hard news stories like congressional votes or developments in Iraq.

One reason teenagers may pay less attention to news than older Americans is only one in 20 young people rely heavily on a daily newspaper, according to the survey, which had a margin of error of 2 percent to 3 percent.

The poll was released amid tough times for many American newspapers, with falling readership and advertising revenue.

Even the Internet, the preferred way for teenagers and young adults to get news, is not stimulating interest in current affairs, Patterson said. Internet-based news, receives about the same attention from older adults as it does from younger ones, the survey found.

“It is hard to pick up a newspaper and ignore that there is a front page, but with the Internet it is easy to play games or conduct a search without seeing news,” said Patterson.

“On the Internet you have to make a deliberate choice to go somewhere and we are finding that young people are not making an appointment with news.”

Teenagers and young adults are twice as likely to watch television for their daily news, relying largely on the same types of outlets as older Americans, the survey found. The only difference is that older Americans are twice as likely to watch television news regularly.

This article is from Reuters. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNew...036737320070710
http://www.freepress.net/news/24525

We needed a study for this? The MTV logos in their binders, the gucci sunglasses, the other signs and we needed Harvard to study this? :lol:

This is of no surprise to me, you go to high school for a month and you really get an idea as to how out of touch teens are with the world news.

Agreed.

And nice quote:
"There is no age for patriotism" -Revolutionary91

There is more to it than just saying teens don't watch the news. Which is correct, but there is more information and motive behind that. What are the figures for people in 20's 30's 40's so on and so on. What are the historical figures?

Am I surprised? No.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IigQXDUHBfk

Take a look at this, its quite interesting.

The guy had me at "I hate MTV"/

That is some weird stuff, I never would have noticed it because I never watch MTV. When and if we get a revolution going I say we take down MTV. They may not be really involved with brainwashing the mind of a teen but they are doing it really damn well. Also Myspace, we need to just resort back to e-mail.

That may be the case with some people, but there are good kids out there that watch the news and politics shows, its just stereotypical teenagers that dont watch the news ect....
Just like us

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http://telltheworld911.blogspot.com

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http://z11.invisionfree.com/why911/

I agree.

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that was touching

thanks

I'm 16, and I watch the news all the time, and I'm a truth activist....

I think the worst thing in this is that Harvard bothered to study it.

Ditto from the UK.

here is a piece of graphics for your collection. keep in mind it is our youth who affect change, just by staying in school and staying informed, voting religiously when you are old enough, if I had my way the legal voting age would be 14
you will be tomorrow's leaders, and tomorrow will come faster than you know.

I can believe it. Every kid my age that I know just wants to watch either American Idol, Jackass, or the newest brain melting movie from Disney. Oh, and lets not forget about the endless rap music.

I've been watching the news for a good three years, but unfortunately 2/3 of it was Fox News. So finally having enough I switched to watching MSNBC and listening the Deutsche Welle Radio, a news station out of Berlin covering International News you don't hear on American news stations.

You can find the english Deutsche Welle Radio on iTunes under "Talk/Speech".

i guess ppl dont wach the news, because theyve been lied to to many times by them

They wouldn't know. Kids my age can't tell the difference between CNN, BBC, and Fox News. All kids view news as "un-cool" and "boring".