The trend: News consumption has a generational divide.

• Only 22% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 said they seek out news often or extremely often, per 2025 Pew Research Center data. That’s a stark difference from the 66% of adults over 65 who said the same.
• Young adults are much more likely to get news incidentally without seeking it out; 70% of young adults said they get political news because they happen to come across it.

Habits for seeking out news show similar differences.

• Teens between 13 and 17 most often get news via social media (57%), and are far less likely to through national print or digital newspapers and magazines (11%), per The Media Insight Project.
• Teens were the most likely to use AI chatbots for news (22%), while all other generations were far less likely to seek information from AI chatbots.
• 74% of adults over 65 get news via television or streaming, while only 25% of adults between 18 and 24 do the same. The former age bracket was also the most likely to still consume news via newspapers (23%).
• Among US adults, those ages 18 to 29 were most likely to consume news by reading it (45%). By comparison, adults ages 65 and older were more likely to watch the news (57% vs. 31%), per Pew.

Why it matters: That generational divide points to a larger shift from intentional media consumption to algorithmic discovery.

• Younger audiences increasingly encounter information through social feeds, creators, and AI rather than traditional news destinations. As they become marketers’ core audience, that shift will make distribution and discoverability on emerging platforms increasingly critical for both publishers and marketers.
• Older audiences are sticking with deliberate, destination-based news habits—meaning traditional channels like linear TV and print remain valuable for reaching this cohort, but less so as marketers shift their focus to emerging audiences.

Implications for marketers: Reaching the next generation of news consumers will increasingly require meeting them where news finds them.

Marketers targeting younger audiences should prioritize the social, creator, and emerging AI ecosystems shaping news discovery, while traditional channels remain valuable for reaching older consumers. As younger audiences’ habits become more mainstream, marketers will need to rethink how their messages are designed to surface and resonate in increasingly algorithm-driven environments.

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