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It does not shock me to find out that one-third of adults get their news on social networks now. It is just the way our society is shifting. It is hard to go a long time without giving Facebook or Twitter or Google+ a check. And when I say a long time, I am only talking about a few hours. What constitutes a “long-time” has changed and so have the people. News is 24 hours now and going more than a few hours without checking something, anything, can lead to feeling helpless and lost.
Thankfully, there is social media nowadays, so we can constantly check the news, while interacting with the participants. It is so easy to connect to everyone and feel involved in the news process. You can even feel newsworthy by posting a video or a comment about a grand occurrence happening in the news.
News is a community now, and there is nothing young people love more than feeling like they are a part of something. So, connecting with the news doesn’t only keep you informed, but it can be fun at the same time.
So, back to the article, it is no surprise that young people are getting the bulk of their news from social media sites instead of actual newspapers. This is a trend that may likely continue to grow as the years go on and more and more people abandon the “old ways” of getting news.
A large part of this trend is also due to the emergence of smartphones. Many people have them use them for everything, like checking the news apps and using the social media apps installed on the phone. I will admit, I am one of these people. Whenever I have a few seconds, I whip out my phone and check the latest headlines or scroll down my Twitter feed for breaking news and more and more people are doing the same thing.
I don’t want to speak for everyone, but this trend is likely to only increase, as the technologies for these smartphones get better and, at the same time, older versions become more affordable to people who can’t afford them now. Also, I think this trend is good. Our society is, for the most part, uniformed, and a lot of that is mostly due to these new phones. People just don’t care about the news like they used to. However, if news organizations can find ways to increase their popularity on these social media sites, they could be helped drastically. But, I won’t complain too much, because I’m just happy that some young people are interested in actually getting the news from somewhere, albeit a social media site.