{"id":14715,"date":"2014-02-04T11:02:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T16:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/facebook-is-a-news-source-for-many-but-only-incidentally\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:23:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:23:26","slug":"facebook-is-a-news-source-for-many-but-only-incidentally","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/02\/04\/facebook-is-a-news-source-for-many-but-only-incidentally\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook is a news source for many, but only incidentally"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Over the past decade, Facebook has evolved from a social network for college students to a source of information, connection, entertainment — and, sometimes, news — for 1.2 billion people<\/a> around the world. But according to a\u00a0Pew Research Center report<\/a>\u00a0from last year,\u00a0most Americans who get news via Facebook do so as a byproduct of their other activities there<\/a> — what one might call “drive-by news”.<\/p>\n\n

About half (47%) of adult U.S. Facebook users said they had ever gotten news via the service — equivalent to 30% of the adult population, the survey found. But the overwhelming majority (78%) of that subgroup said they picked up news from Facebook when they were on the site for some other reason; just 4% said Facebook was their most important news source.<\/p>\n\n

Facebook news consumers are considerably younger (39) than other adult Facebook users (47). About a third (34%) of Facebook news consumers are ages 18 to 29; nearly four-in-ten (39%) are ages 30 to 49.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Unlike Twitter, which has developed into a go-to source for breaking news<\/a>, only 28% of Facebook news consumers have ever used the service to track an unfolding news story. And even among that sub-subgroup, fewer than half (41%) said Facebook was among the first places they’d turn to keep up with a breaking news event.<\/p>\n\n

Speaking of which, just what sort of news are we talking about, anyway? While Facebook news consumers say they see regularly news about a range of different topics, entertainment news seems to stand out: Almost three-quarters (73%) said they regularly saw entertainment news on the site. The next most commonly cited topics: community news (65%) and sports (57%).<\/p>\n\n

Facebook, which is constantly seeking ways to encourage people to visit the site more often and stay longer, apparently sees news as a way to deepen what it calls “user engagement.” On Monday, the company rolled out a new iPhone app called Paper<\/a> that (along with a new, less cluttered interface) employs human editors to recommend\u00a0articles and blog posts on a dozen newsy topics, from top headlines and sports to technology and the environment.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike Twitter, which has developed into a go-to source for breaking news, only 28% of Facebook news consumers have ever used the service to track an unfolding news story. And even among that sub-subgroup, fewer than half (41%) said Facebook was among the first places they’d turn to keep up with a breaking news event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063898","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[275,311,333,307,352],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[527],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14715","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-digital-news-landscape-2","category-facebook","category-news-platforms-sources","category-social-media","category-social-media-news","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-journalism"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":333,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/02\/04\/facebook-is-a-news-source-for-many-but-only-incidentally\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Facebook is a news source for many, but only incidentally","description":"Unlike Twitter, which has developed into a go-to source for breaking news, only 28% of Facebook news consumers have ever used the service to track an unfolding news story. 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