Multitasking and Overloading

Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed under Communications, Editing, Writing and tagged associated press, emailing, multitasking, newspapers, study, young people

The Associated Press has unveiled a 71-page study that looks at how young people consume news these days, and its seems that they suffer from “news fatigue,” overloaded with facts and frequent information updates, but often have trouble finding more in-depth news.

The study, released today at the World Editors Forum in Sweden, also reported that young readers yearn for quality and in-depth reporting, but have difficulty immediately getting such content. The report also says that the process they use to get their news involves multitasking and reading e-mails.

In the report, the AP recommends that news outlets “develop easier ways for readers to discover in-depth content and to avoid repetitious updates of breaking news.” The purpose of the study was to obtain a deeper understanding of the news consumption of younger audiences.

The young people who participated in the study also said they’re unable to give their full attention to the news because they are often simultaneously engaged in other activities, such as reading e-mail. That seems to be a dramatic shift from previous studies, which showed that people sat down to watch the evening news or read the morning newspaper.

“Our observations and analysis identified that consumers’ news diets are out of balance due to the over-consumption of facts and headlines,” said Robbie Blinkoff, co-founder and head anthropologist at the Baltimore, Md.-based Context-Based Research Group, which conducted the study for the AP.

Young people were studied in six major metropolitan areas: Houston, Silicon Valley, Philadelphia and Kansas City in the United States; Brighton, Britain; and Hyderabad, India.