There are some contradictory findings in the AP report on the news habits of young adults (PDF).

The report, A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption,is based on a global anthropological study of the news consumption patterns of young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 in Britain, India and the US by the Context-Based Research Group.

The study found that young people suffered from “”news fatigue”, meaning they were overloaded with facts and updates.

This could be partly due to the fact that news is multitasked, as the study found:

Participants in this study almost always consumed news as part of another set of activities and therefore were unable to give their full attention to the news. This is very different from previous news consumption models where people sat down to watch the evening news or read the morning paper. Multitasking prevented participants from becoming completely engaged with a news story and therefore interaction with the news was limited to headlines and news updates.

At the same, young people said they also wanted more in-depth, quality news, but had difficulty immediately accessing such content.

This is interesting, given the amount of news and information available online, and the ability of users to delve as much as they want into a particular topic.

It raises all sorts of questions as to whether this is due to way news is presented online or whether it is more to do with the way this information is consumed.

Online, news competes for attention with a myriad of distractions that are only a click away.

Related articles

• Young People: The News is Exhausting Us! [via Zemanta]
• Study: Young Adults Feel ‘News Fatigue’ [via Zemanta]