Gen Y vs. The Newspapers

I was reading an article on how Gen Y doesn’t read newspapers recently that got me thinking a bit. Although, declining readership is by no means new news, I think what really triggered me was that they specifically targeted Gen Y (app. those born from 1981-2000, also called ‘Millenials’). Being that I’m one of those Gen Y’ers who doesn’t read newspapers, I thought it might prove valuable to extract the reasons why I don’t read the newspaper.

That’s not to say I never-ever read the newspaper, occasionally I’ll pick up the Georgia Straight or the WestEnder as I’m about town, but mostly that’s to browse on upcoming shows/openings/events. [ed. note: for those that aren't based in Vancouver, the Georgia Straight/WestEnder are our alternative newspapers, that is, they're distributed for free on street corners and are driven completely through ad revenue] Next to occasionally picking up one of these two newspapers however, I never read the paper. I can’t remember the last time I bought a paper. Seriously.

Unlike previous generations (from my understanding which may be erroneous), the newspaper was never a central element to my life. It is not like I read it and then suddenly stopped. It has never been on my cultural radar.

Anyway, back to the point at hand: I spent some time thinking about this, and I believe there’s a few major reasons why I don’t read a newspaper that may provide some generic insight into why Gen Y doesn’t read the newspaper. This isn’t a definitive answer or definition of why Gen Y doesn’t read the paper, but it may give you some food for thought.

Gen Y

I would recommend this fantastic dossier as an introduction to Gen Y on ReadWriteWeb that will explain this new cultural phenomenon much better than I will. Essentially, Gen Y are the first media savvy generation that grew up completely co-existing with technology. We’re three times larger than Gen X and we consume and exchange information at exponential levels. We rely heavily on our friends for everything and have dynamic new ideas about work, social responsibilities, mass media, consumption, advertising, identity and how they all fit into our life(style). At a fundamental level, we’re a generation that’s been raised to be completely comfortable with quick, extreme change. This chameleon-like nature makes us question everything around us, especially because we’re so informed.

Competition

It’s really no secret that the internet revolutionized the availability of information unlike any other invention since Gutenberg’s Moveable Type. It’s always-on availability and the price point of blogging platforms (free), meant that publishing was no longer limited online to the web savvy or, in print, to distribution through mass media (newspapers, tv, magazines, book publishers, etc.). Within the last few years, through improved internet searching, the development of web standards, and the consequent increase in search engine optimization, the web has grown exponentially in it’s usefulness. Finding the information that you’re looking for has never been easier, which is why newspapers are losing. It’s simply impossible to provide the information that the majority of people are interested in within such a fixed format. For example, I may jump from reading about why I should invest in dividends, to researching a new workout regimine, then I’ll browse my design forum, find a link to a blog about Gen Y and read some posts there, hit up my favorite online comics, and then open up Thunderbird to check my e-mails and RSS feeds before hitting my facebook, twitter, vimeo, et al accounts to see what’s going on there. And that’s how my morning starts. It’s completely different things on different days and I may go through this browsing cycle 2-8 times per day depending on how much I feel like working and/or how close my deadlines are. Disregarding the interactive and social elements of that list, the newspapers still cannot compete with the amount of diverse interests that people have, let alone the ease of access to the information. You would need multiple papers and magazines to get even close to the breadth of content I accessed in just that one browsing cycle. That doesn’t even factor in the notoriously short attention spans Gen Y supposedly has.

Mistrust

I’m not sure if this can necessarily be designated a Gen Y trait, but one of my biggest issues with mass media today is how utterly biased/corrupted I perceive it to be. I can’t count the number of stories I’ve heard over the years of editing, short-cuttings, firings, or removal of news stories because the story referenced, directly or indirectly, one of their advertisers. That’s not to mention the sham that has been the mainstream media’s reporting for the last decade or two. It boggles my mind that The Daily Show tends to do a better job of calling a spade a spade than CNN or most of the other major news networks (and I won’t get into the dizzying obsession with and deification of celebrities that pervades mainstream media). I think Keith Olbermann might be the only saving grace on television right now. \ Although, I wouldn’t really know, since I gave up watching that garbage 5 years ago and haven’t looked back since. And no, Canadian news isn’t any better.

Why would I watch a news program whose stories are potentially being audited, edited, corrupted, or removed by politicians, owners, and advertisers. Why wouldn’t I just go to Now Public, Google, or the Blogosphere for my news? It tends to be significantly more accurate (in the case of Now Public, during the Hurricane Katrina incident, they had more reporters in the affected area than most news organizations have on their entire staff), not to mention the fact that the news coming out is not being influenced by fiscal responsibilities.

Negativity

There is not that much to say about this one, really. The news (television or in print), is bloody depressing. I remember when I was about 17 or 18 that I tried being an “informed citizen” regularly, started watching the news and reading the paper somewhat consistently and I couldn’t stand it. It was constant negative news about murder, corruption, death, etc. I made a conscious decision shortly thereafter to stop investing time in these things because I noticed it was making me overtly negative. It doesn’t mean that I stopped being informed, but I started finding ways that I could consume information as I desired it. That is, I started filtering my consumption.

I think one of the strengths of Gen Y is the inherent knowledge about media and advertising we possess. This is our culture, this is what we’ve always known, which means we’ve evolved instinctual ways to filter what we do and do not want to process. For me, the negativity of the newspaper and lack of information I was actually interested in caused me to filter it right out of my reality.

Price-Point

Once again, that isn’t to say that I never see the newspaper headlines in the convenience store, I can actually remember a number of times that they’ve grabbed my attention. But I glance at them, get a brief idea of the story, and then move on. Why? Because I know I can save that $0.25. Actually, come to think of it, are papers even that cheap anymore?

Oh. Wait. I don’t care. If the story actually grabs my interest enough for me to remember in five minutes when I get home, I’ll just look it up on the newspaper’s website and read it there. Or I’ll find one of the other twenty sites on Google that are carrying the same story. For free. I’m horrible with money, but that’s at least one lesson in frugality I can get my head around.

Plus, I don’t really want to go through the effort of going back to the cashier to pay for this paper because I sure as hell didn’t see it on my way into the store. I know where the newspapers are and they aren’t anywhere near what I’m there for. So I take a glance on my way out of the store and see if there’s anything I want to research when I get home.

And no, that isn’t a call for all your marketing specialists to start moving the papers around the stores to try and hook me better. I’ll figure out where they’ve been moved to on my next time into the store and will add it to my filter list. And if you keep moving it around, I’ll just add the entire shape to my filter list.

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