The evolving news landscape: Comparing media habits and trust between teens and adults

The news industry has an imperative to understand how news habits differ by generation. In an increasingly fractured media ecosystem, age is a major factor in determining people's news and information needs and priorities, the ways they access news, and who they trust to provide it. This understanding of news engagement by generation is essential for news leaders to develop innovative strategies to reach news consumers across age, including new opportunities to collaborate with influencers, independent creators, and local news and information providers.

A new in-depth study by the Media Insight Project, which surveyed both adults and teens as young as 13 years old, provides a deep look into how news engagement does and does not vary by generation. The research reveals that people of all generations now get news and information from "influencers" or "independent creators." Indeed, more than half of all American teenagers and adults (57%) now report getting news and information from influencers at least sometimes. And, unlike with traditional media, levels of trust in this emerging sector are similar across political ideologies. This sector is particularly powerful with younger Americans. Fully 81% of those ages 13-17 report getting news and information from influencers. Taken together, the signals in the study suggest this sector is poised to only grow in importance, use, and effect on the information ecosystem of the nation.

Even at this relatively early stage in the evolution of the influencer/creator ecosystem, most American teenagers and adults say they trust influencers or independent creators to verify facts, be transparent, or offer different viewpoints at least somewhat well. Interestingly, this trust does not vary significantly between different age groups.

At the same time, the public has different priorities for influencers or creators than it does for other news sources. When determining which creators to get news or information from, many people feel it's important that influencers are transparent about sponsored content and their mission. People say they care less about how many followers a creator has or whether people they know, digitally or personally, also follow that influencer.

And there are important findings about consumer revenue. In all, nearly 7 out of 10 American teenagers and adults pay for some kind of news product or service, 56% directly and another 23% through another person's subscription or membership. The percentage is higher for older Americans. Yet even among the cohort least likely to pay, those ages 18-34, 54% pay for something, though it is more likely to be a video or TV source than a podcast, radio, or newspaper.

In general, teens continue to rely most heavily on social media, while older adults remain deeply connected to television and print-based news. Younger people are less likely to use or pay for several types of traditional news products, despite high levels of daily engagement with news content. For all that, nearly half of teens and adults still watch TV news in some form every day.

Local news continues to occupy an essential role in the media landscape, though it is one of the most threatened sectors of journalism. It is increasingly unclear what business model will be able to sustain journalism in smaller markets. Yet local news is generally more trusted. It is also one of the most complex or varied parts of the media ecosystem. Most Americans say they receive local information from local news outlets, community organizations, or word-of-mouth networks. Teens, however, are more likely than adults to encounter local news through local creators or influencers, signaling a generational shift in how communities stay informed.

While confidence in news sources remains relatively low on average, the public differentiates sharply among sources of information. Local news emerges as the most trusted overall, though local and national news outlets score similarly on several metrics, including when it comes to being perceived to be best at helping people understand the world around them, verify facts, or treating different sides fairly. Local news is considered better than national news at giving people useful information.

Only a quarter of the teens and adults say that influencers or independent creators are better than other sources of news (local outlets, national outlets, or AI) at treating all sides fairly, helping people understand the world around them, or getting facts right. Local and national news are not far ahead, with 3 in 10 saying that these two sources are best at treating all sides fairly, helping people understand the world around them, or getting the facts right - an important data point as the news industry thinks about how to leverage and work with this growing segment of information providers.

The study also reveals substantial skepticism about the utility and veracity of AI, at least for now. AI chatbots lag behind all other sources regarding public trust, with only 1 in 10 feeling they are more trustworthy than other news sources. However, some distrust of AI could be fueled by low use, with two-thirds of all teens and adults never using AI for news and information at all.

These findings are part of a new study, The Evolving News Landscape: Comparing Media Habits and Trust Between Teens and Adults, which examines news engagement with a greater level of detail than before, studying teens as young as 13, and asking not just about where and how people get news but also discovering how those habits vary by the topics people are learning about.

The report is the latest study from the Media Insight Project. The Media Insight Poll is a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. This new report draws on a nationally representative survey of teens ages 13-17 and adults 18 and older, providing one of the most comprehensive, generationally comparative looks at how Americans navigate an increasingly complex news, information, and media ecosystem. With more than 2,000 interviews, the study offers rare insight into how media habits, values, expectations, and trust differ across five distinct age groups: ages 13-17, 18-34, 35-49, 50-64, and 65 and older.

Comparisons across generations and engagement

Most American teenagers and adults follow a variety of news and information topics. Out of a list of 14 topic areas - from "hard news" to entertainment - American teens and adults on average follow four regularly, though fully one out of five say they do not follow any particular topics consistently.

Different age groups also tend to follow different topics. Interest in hard news - such as politics, social issues, and business - continues to rise with age. Lifestyle and entertainment remain central to the information diets of both teens and older adults. The findings also highlight meaningful differences in the extent to which people pay for, donate to, or use news products - driven not only by age, but also by the frequencies with which people follow certain categories of news. Avid hard news consumers are more likely than moderate or low hard news consumers to personally pay for or donate to several of the products surveyed.

Many news perceptions vary by age or news consumption habits: older adults and avid hard news consumers show stronger confidence in traditional outlets. Those who pay for news express notably higher trust in both local and national sources' abilities to verify information and help audiences understand complex issues. Teens demonstrate relatively balanced confidence across traditional and alternative sources compared with older adults. Younger audiences do not reject traditional journalism outright, but they do not grant it automatic authority. Unlike older adults, who show stronger, categorical confidence in local and national outlets, teens and young adults distribute trust more evenly across traditional news and independent creators.

As the Media Insight Project and others have seen before, among adults, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to trust and regularly use local news sources, reflecting stronger confidence in traditional, community-based journalism. This difference may stem from broader partisan divides in attitudes toward legacy media and perceptions of journalistic credibility. However, these partisan distinctions do not extend to influencers: Democrats and Republicans are likely to follow influencers and to trust the information they share at similar levels.

The study also reveals significant stress and fatigue in Americans' relationship with news. While most feel capable of finding relevant content and identifying trustworthy information, the emotional toll they feel in doing so is considerable. Very few Americans say news gives them a hopeful view of the world; and a substantial portion report feeling overwhelmed or finding news too stressful.

In response, teens and adults are actively managing their exposure - not by rejecting news wholesale, but by avoiding specific topics or contexts. Celebrity news, political content, and news encountered on social media or during personal conversations are the most commonly avoided, and these avoidance patterns differ by age. American teenagers and adults assign responsibility for misinformation primarily to politicians and social media actors rather than news organizations, with local news receiving the least blame - a pattern that may help explain why trust in local journalism remains comparatively resilient even as media fatigue grows.

Together, these findings offer a rich portrait of a media environment that is rapidly diversifying but still grounded in longstanding behaviors and expectations. They underscore both the challenges and opportunities ahead for news organizations, community information providers, and creators alike as they navigate an increasingly crowded, fragmented, and generationally stratified media world.

Among the study findings:

• The media diets of teens and adults differ sharply, with social media dominating teen news use while older adults rely heavily on television and newspapers. Teens ages 13-17 are the only age group in which most (57%) get news from social media at least daily, whereas adults 65 and older overwhelmingly turn to TV (74%).
• Hard news engagement grows with age, while teens are more likely to be heavy lifestyle news consumers. Only 12% of teens qualify as "avid hard news consumers" - people who follow news related to politics, social issues, the economy, environment, or crime. The number is almost three times higher, 35%, for adults 65 and older. At the same time, teens ages 13-17 (48%) - more than any other age group - follow many lifestyle topics closely, reflecting distinct generational priorities.
• Local news remains widely used and positively viewed, yet the pathways to it vary substantially by age. Adults 65 and older are more likely than some younger age groups to rely on local news outlets such as TV, radio, or newspapers, while teens ages 13-17 are more likely than older adults over 65 to get local news from local influencers or independent creators (48% vs. 23%). Despite these differences, adults and teens across all ages tend to view local news outlets as effective at covering important issues and verifying facts.
• Influencers or independent creators have become a major, cross-generational information source - especially for national news, pop culture, or wellness. A majority of teens and adults, fully 57%, receive at least some news from influencers or independent creators, with teens (81%) engaging most frequently.
• When it comes to building trust in the creator community, those who get news from influencers or independent creators say transparency - particularly around sponsored content and the mission of the account - is more important to them than how many followers a creator has. Fifty percent feel that transparency around sponsored content is very important compared with only 10% who say the same about follower count.
• Concerns about misinformation and media reliability shape how people evaluate both traditional and influencer-based sources. While many teens and adults say influencers or independent creators do at least somewhat well at transparency (66%), trust is far from absolute.
• Confidence in news sources is low across the board, with fewer than half of teens and adults expressing a great deal of confidence in any source type, though local news ranks highest. Local news is viewed as most trustworthy, followed by national news, independent creators, and AI chatbots. Each source type has distinct perceived strengths: local news ranks highest for providing useful information (41%), while independent creators are seen by roughly one in four as best at treating all sides fairly.
• Teens and adults hold politicians and social media companies primarily responsible for misinformation. A majority blame politicians (66%) for spreading misinformation, while local news receives the least blame (35%).
• Despite feeling capable of navigating news, few say it gives them a hopeful view of the world. Most report avoiding news about specific topics, especially celebrity news (71%) or political content (62% avoid news stories about Donald Trump; 57% news about national politics), with older adults managing exposure more actively than younger people.

The Evolving News Landscape: Comparing media habits and trust between teens and adults is the latest study from the Media Insight Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. This study features a combined sample 1,092 respondents ages 18 and older and 1,009 respondents ages 13-17, both nationally representative.

The new survey's large nationally representative sample provides a unique opportunity for a detailed analysis of America's most diverse generations. This report from the study will examine the news behaviors and views of five distinct age groups: 13- to 17-year-olds, 18- to 34-year-olds, 35- to 49-year-olds, 50- to 64-year-olds, and adults 65 and older. The sample allows us to explore how new-related habits and views vary across different age groups.

Download the study PDF here.

The evolving news landscape: Comparing media habits and trust between teens and adults

The news consumption habits of teens and adults

Local news

Influencers and alternative media

Strengths and weaknesses of news sources

Media fatigue, trust, misinformation and partisanship

Study methodology