Millennials Get More Political News From Facebook Than Any Other Source

Since people tend to create social media friendship eco-systems with people who share similar views, this is hardly the brave new world of omnivorous information liberation and judgment many had predicted the internet would deliver. And it may well be contributing to hardening attitudes on a variety of social, economic and political issues.

Boomers, meanwhile, depend on local television for their political news, meaning that they are probably quite current on inclement weather, recent law enforcement incidents and pet rescues. JL

Colin Lecher reports in The Verge:

A quarter (24%) of Millennials who use Facebook say at least half of the posts they see on the site relate to government and politics, higher than both Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. 60% of Boomers got political views from local TV.
A new survey from Pew is putting hard numbers on what many people probably assumed: millennials (more commonly, "snake people") are ditching sources like local TV and going to Facebook for their political news instead.

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The survey, "Millennials and Political News," asked "a nationally representative panel of randomly selected US adults who have online access" about their news consumption habits. According to Pew's findings, about 61 percent of millennials surveyed got news about politics and government from Facebook in the past week, while only 37 percent got that news from local TV. For Baby Boomers, those statistics were almost reversed: about 60 percent got news from local TV, while 39 percent got news from Facebook. (Pew defines "Millennial" as someone born between 1981 and 1996, and a "Baby Boomer" as someone born between 1946 and 1964.)
According to the survey, which also asked Gen Xers questions, millennials are generally less interested in political news than older generations, and less familiar with specific news sources Pew asked about. But despite that gap, millennials consumed news on Facebook at a higher rate: "Roughly a quarter (24%) of Millennials who use Facebook say at least half of the posts they see on the site relate to government and politics, higher than both Gen Xers (18%) and Baby Boomers (16%) who use the social networking site," according to the survey.
You may be asking: Is this... good? As Pew points out, despite the fact that millennials end up seeing a lower percentage of news on Facebook that already lines up with their political views, they're relying more heavily on the site as a news source, "meaning that at least at the moment, this affects a smaller share of [Baby Boomers]." Of course, hoaxes run rampant on Facebook compared to other sources, while local TV news isn't exactly a crystal-clear lens from which to view the world. Pick your snake venom.