The Pew Research Centre has just released the latest edition of their tracking survey on the news consumption habits of Americans.

As usual, there is a wealth of interesting data in the study, confirming what appears to be the general consensus. A particularly interesting tidbit:

“The practice of coming across news inadvertently on the internet is prevalent among all age groups, but is most popular among the very young: 84% of 18-24-year-old online news users get news in this way, compared with about three-quarters (73%) of internet news users between 25 and 64, and just 58% of those 65 and older.

This is one of several ways in which the online news habits of very young people differ from older people. For example, a solid majority of online news users younger than 25 (64%) say they more often follow links to news stories, rather than go directly to the home pages of news sources; nearly half (48%) of those aged 25-29 do this, compared with only a third (34%) of those just a few years younger.”

Are these differences generational or related to life-stage transitions? It’s difficult for us to speculate as to what might be the generational difference between a 24 year-old and a 26 year-old. And indeed, it is tempting to say this is purely generational because that’s the way the data is presented.

But as Youth Media DNA found, young people tend to drop the newspaper habit between the ages of 18 and 25, and especially when they move from living with their parents to living alone or with roommates.

Interestingly, they become more traditional in their news orientation when they live as couples or with children and newspaper readership rises again.

We suspect that if Pew were to break down these patterns by life-stage, particularly in terms of living situation, educational attainment, and career designation, a clearer picture may emerge as to what accounts for these differences, and what newspaper organizations should do about it, and when.

It may well be that as young people grow older, they become more trusting of authoritative sources. It may be that they have less time to follow links sent by friends and are more likely to regiment their news consumption.