MIAMI – May 11, 2016 – A new report reveals a fundamental shift in the way people access news, with more people consuming news on mobile than ever before, and increasingly using social media and news applications as a pathway. With research commissioned from Nielsen and supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the two-part series offers unique insights to news organizations and others on how people are interacting with news on mobile.

The report, “Mobile First News: How People Use Smartphones to Access Information” includes a snapshot of how people in the U.S. access news across sites, apps and social media platforms and takes a deeper dive into how news is accessed and by whom, tracking age, ethnicity and income. In contrast to other studies on mobile behavior that rely heavily on self-reported survey data, one part of the report is based on actual user data. It includes findings from 9,000 panelists who use an “always-on” meter on their mobile device. The study also included a supplemental survey of 2,176 users that looked at news behaviors on social networking sites.

“Mobile devices allow people to stay constantly connected, affecting how they interact with information in the moment, and demanding a different approach to news delivery,” said Luz Gomez, Knight Foundation director for learning and impact. “The report highlights this shift, offering valuable insights into emerging habits and practices, even as the mobile landscape continues to evolve.”

Most people who have a mobile device, 89 percent or 144 million individuals, use it to access news. According to the report, mobile users spend 27 percent of their time using social media sites and apps. And among those surveyed who use social networks more than half, or 54 percent, use social media to find that news. For those who use social media for news it is among the top news sources, trailing only television, but pulling ahead of radio, newspapers, news apps and magazines.

A review of some top mobile news providers (i.e. BuzzFeed, USA TODAY, FOX News, CNN) showed that the majority of mobile news-seekers, 61 percent, use both news websites and mobile apps to access news. However, the time spent in apps is longer with 75 percent of news time (an average of 2 hours, 4 minutes a month) spent within apps, suggesting app users are more engaged.

“We need to understand how people are using social and mobile to engage with news,” said Jennifer Preston, Knight Foundation vice president for journalism. “With this in mind, the report helps news organizations and others better understand how to navigate this growing space and explore new ways to engage audiences.”

Part one of the report tracks the number of people who interact with news on mobile, the time they spend on it, the type of news they favor and the role of news apps in engaging audiences. The findings highlight important shifts in the ways in which people are accessing news, providing journalists with a reference point for developing new practices and approaches to news innovation. Key findings include:

• Mobile news-seekers, on average, dedicate nearly 5 percent (or more than 2 hours) of their monthly mobile time to news. But the report reveals a change from 2013 to 2015, showing that time spent directly on mobile apps and sites has declined over the past year. Reading time may be shifting towards social networks; half of social-networkers spend time looking at news. Seventy percent of Facebook users access news from Facebook every day.

• People who use social media to find news depend on friends, contacts and those they follow as trusted news sources, competing with media outlets themselves. Seventy-one percent of mobile Facebook users and 62 percent of Twitter users said they received news through friends or contacts. And 65 percent of mobile Facebook users and 71 percent of Twitter users said they received their news through people they follow.

• More than 80 percent of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users take action after accessing news, the main actions being clicking “like” (in Facebook and Instagram) or “retweeting without comment.” And 59  percent of Facebook users, 41 percent of Twitter, and 35 percent of Instagram users said that they talk about news offline with other people.

• A review of top apps (BuzzFeed, Flipboard, USA TODAY, FOX News, AOL, Reddit, CNN, Wikipedia Mobile, Google Play Newstand, Google News & Weather) reveals that Flipboard’s audience is the only one that has been steadily increasing, while audiences for other top apps are flattening. Flipboard has a monthly audience of 9 million users as of Sept. 15, 2015, significantly higher than the next most popular app, CNN, which has more than 3 million monthly users.

• The type of content people interact with is similar across Facebook, Twitter and Google+ with entertainment news dominating. Eighty-one percent of Facebook users said they use the platform for entertainment news, putting it in the top spot ahead of U.S., world, politics, lifestyle, tech, sports and financial/business.

• Content consumption patterns diverge on Instagram and LinkedIn; 57 percent of people use LinkedIn for financial and business news, compared to 33 percent on Facebook and only 26 percent on Twitter. In addition to entertainment, lifestyle figures prominently on Instagram relative to other topics.

Part two of the report includes a detailed look into demographics and how people from diverse backgrounds find their way to the news. It offers journalists insights into better connecting with audiences by emphasizing how diverse groups approach access to mobile news differently. Some of the key findings include:

• Young millennials (ages 18-24) and people in higher income brackets ($75,000+) are more likely to get news through social media apps.

• With the exception of LinkedIn, women were more likely than men to look for news on the social media platforms that were studied; 60 percent of people who seek news on social media are women.

• Young millennials are three to four times more likely than typical online adults to get to news content from Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat.

• BuzzFeed and Facebook are among the sites that dominate in bringing young millennials to other mobile news sites. Those sites, in addition to CNN and Reddit, are also more likely to lead diverse audiences such as Asians and Hispanics to other mobile news content.

• African-Americans are 2.5 times more likely than typical online adults to go to news content from Twitter.

• Wikipedia reaches almost one-third of the total mobile population each month. It was one of the top 10 websites people landed on prior to visiting sites such as BuzzFeed, Daily MailOnline, nytimes.com, usatoday.com, washingtonpost.com and Tribune Newspapers.

• Reddit devotees go to the app often (twice a day) and spend roughly five times the amount of time with Reddit’s app than other top news apps.

The report opens opportunities for news organizations and other content creators to craft new strategies toward developing a “mobile-first” mindset. Importantly, it shows that the mobile news ecosystem continues to change, pushing news organizations to constantly experiment and explore the ways in which diverse groups connect with news on mobile.

The report is part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to support journalism excellence and audience engagement by helping news organizations, local online news sites and content creators share learning about mobile news experiments, in order to engage and inform communities.

To explore it, visit kng.ht/mobilefirst. Follow the conversation on Twitter with @knightfdn and #mobilefirst.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org

CONTACT: Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 305-908-2646, [email protected]