We've known for quite a while that young people tune out the news, or at least the news offered in traditional formats. There was a brief book on this that, while it received more attention than it deserved, was the right topic at the right time -- so it really struck a chord. Now here's an article that sums up how technology isn't necessarily drawing younger folks to the news.
There has always been an "age effect" when studying political knowledge, what people know, and if younger Americans continue their disinterest toward news, then this gap will increase. But it's not quite that simple. We're seeing hints of young folks picking up bits and pieces of news from social networking sites, from haphazard exposure to aggregators like Yahoo News, and all the rest. So it may not be as bad as we think, calling of course for that phrase all scholars love to hear -- deserves more research.
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