News and Gen Z: Are they friends?

The workforce has seen a steady increase in Generation Z hires, hence, deeming it crucial to understand their information needs: What, when and where they need it?

Kevin Click, a California State University’s Psychology Department lecturer, wanted to find out the answers to exactly these questions in a study titled “Trending Now.”

He and his colleagues gathered data from a random-item questionnaire sent to students across eight universities and analyzed the answers.

An excerpt reads:

“It’s fair to say that they are interested in news; it’s just that they’re moving away from traditional formats, and that shift has been going on for a long time, and across the board. I’m sure news organizations have been watching that closely,” said Click.

He also discovered that the youngest generation of adults is keenly interested in local news, citing the California wildfires as an example, for which local outlets were viewed as more intimately knowledgeable and trustworthy than their national news counterparts.

This generation of digital natives is growing up in a time of great upheaval: climate change, political polarization and economic uncertainty. These issues are shaping the world around them, and they’re looking for answers — and, more importantly, actionable solutions — to help them navigate this new reality.

“I think the key is putting that information where Gen Z is looking for it, and they’re looking for it on Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat,” said Click. He’s found that Gen Z news consumers turn to social media sites for news significantly more than the prior generation of millennials.

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