Study shows that news consumption has gone up thanks to mobile devices

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, more people are now consuming news thanks to the increasing popularity and use of mobile devices, and more people are sharing news thanks to social media, although they still go to the original news source to get their news.

One of the new changes in news consumption has to do with more people using tablets to get their news (27 percent), as they have become more popular in the last year, the Canadian QMI Agency pointed out in an article, adding that “80 percent of tablet users still check the news on their laptops and desktops.”

The 2012 State of the News Media report by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism states that this does not necessarily mean that the news industry is profiting, as the technology companies are the ones taking in most of the profits. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, AOL and Yahoo! generated 68 percent of digital ad revenue in 2011, an Associated Press article explained.

The study also showed that although people do share news on social media outlets, the change in news consumption is not as dramatic as some may think. Social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter, “are used as supplements to news sources, not as replacements,” the technology news site ZDNet explained. “Even so, social media are an increasingly important driver of news, according to traffic data,” ZDNet added.

The fact that more people seem to be consuming news, regardless of which method they use to get them, is good news for journalists. Yes, there is a shortage of jobs in the newspaper industry, as a recent report showed. But, people’s want and interest for news consumption still exists, and it is the journalists who can provide quality journalism to the public; it just might have to be through different mediums.