More Than 80% of US Adults Get News On Their Phones (axios.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 80% of U.S. adults get news on their phones -- up from roughly half of Americans just four years ago, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. Most of that growth comes from adults older than 65 whose news consumption via mobile spiked almost 25% in the last year, and has tripled over the past four years.

Comments

And 80% of those from Facebook Fake News

[bobbied]

Hey, if they can make up statistics, I can too...

Mobile not preferred source of news

[by (1706743)]

From the study linked in TFA, this number (80%) does not represent primary or preferred, but seems to mean "any news":

Even though a large number of older adults are getting news on mobile devices, that doesn’t mean they prefer it. Across all adults, a clear majority of those who get news on both mobile devices and desktop/laptop computers prefer to get their news on mobile (65%). But those 65 and older are the only age group in which less than half prefer to do so: Only 44% prefer mobile, compared with about three-quarters of those 18 to 29 (77%), figures that have remained steady for both groups over the past year. In the next-highest age group, those 50 to 64, about half now prefer to get their news on mobile (54%), up from about four-in-ten (41%) a year ago.

(TFS didn't claim that 80% preferred mobile, but I thought it was mildly ambiguous.)

So What?

[apoc.famine]

How is this newsworthy? And I actually looked at the article, and there's no additional content there.
 
It was newsworthy when we switched from newspapers and the nightly news to the internet, for sure. But why would anyone care what device people use to get their internet news? Does the smaller screen of the phone change the meaning? (And no, that's a rhetorical question. There is no additional content in the article which would add anything remotely of value.)

Re:So What?

[Hadlock]

There's a finite number of advertising dollars, there's a finite number of eyeballs, and you want to target the most eyeballs per dollar of your target market, so you need to know how they're consuming media/news to do that effectively.
 
Marketing dollars fund the news companies/channels via the ads they buy, and those companies need to know where the viewers are, so that their sales people know what kind of advertising product/space to marketing buyers.
 
Television and Radio are known markets, very stable, we have a standard 30 second spot for both radio and TV, you can compare advertising costs in different markets very easily. Web is consumed in two different ways (At least) desktop and mobile, which are two very different use cases and factors, much like surfing at your desk at the office vs listening to the radio on your morning commute. You need to accomodate for those form factors and determine if you're going to do a 50/50 split or 90/10 split.
 
What this PR release is trying to point out is that seniors, who typically have been in the Television/Radio advertising market, have now begun turning to the mobile advertising market, and marketers should be talking increasingly to the mobile sales guy at the NYT/WSJ/Huff Post etc etc, rather than the television sales guy at Fox News, CNN, CNBC etc etc if you want to target all of the 65 and above demographic.

Re:News on the phone...

[sexconker]

Congrats! Enjoy the younger man.

80% of U.S.A. adults get "news" on their phones

[DontBeAMoran]

And by "news" we really mean "porn".

Proofreading is your friend

[DontBeAMoran]

Did you mean "How many exercise critical thinking when they read?"

Not by choice

[darkain]

I don't get it by choice. Google Now forces bullshit I don't give two fucks about down my throat.

_some_ of their news

[OffTheLip]

I get news from a variety of sources. If my mobile device is most handy that's my source. Perhaps the headline should read "80% of US adults get their news on what they use."