Study: Teenagers find online news stressful
By Erina Lin, Wednesday 30 January 2008 at 21:51 :: Young Reader :: #1177 :: rss
A study by Northwestern University found that teenagers find online news troubling and a reminder of the world's dangers, contrasted by time spent on YouTube, social networking and music downloading sites, which they viewed as a treat.
For the study, "If It Catches My Eye: An Exploration of Online News Experiences of Teenagers," researchers interviewed 65 teens in the Chicago area in 2007. Findings suggests news organisations should cultivate teen audiences by understanding what they are interested in and diminishing their angst, according to a Editor & Publisher report.
It also found that a small portion of teens keeps up with the news and considers what they learn from it as an important part of their emerging identity, E&P reported.
Other findings include:
- Teens get most of their news online from the biggest online portals and news aggregators which pop up online first, instead of local media Web sites. Thus, news organisations should develop widgets, partnerships and news feeds tailored for teens so their content is there when they are online.
- Teens' favourite sites for online news scored high for being easy to use, useful, trustworthy and for providing them with something to talk about.
- Because news is sometimes stressful for teens, news outlets should actively experiment to diminish negative associations and make news a better springboard for talk, action and change.
For a previous SFN article on this study about how news Web sites can catch teens' attention, click here.
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