Digital Natives and News Consumption

I was particularly interested to read about "digital natives" and newspaper consumption. Contrary to popular belief, Chyi (2015) showed that "digital natives" do not necessarily prefer online newspapers to their print editions. For example, a national survey of US college newspaper advisers indicated that their students overwhelmingly preferred to read the print edition of the college newspaper. Other studies found that while older people were more likely than younger ones to read a print newspaper, the penetration of a given print newspaper was higher than its online penetration even among young people. That said, whether the news is in a digital or print format, young people are less likely to find news interesting or relevant for them (Lee & Chyi, 2014). They prefer entertainment over news. Chyi encourages newspaper managers to acknowledge that print is their asset and digital is not their forte. I tend to agree, but I am also concerned that in an attempt to attract more young readers to news websites, these websites may display even less news and more content related to entertainment and non-public affairs.