One-third of people want less news in their Facebook feeds (FB)

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Thirty-three percent of Facebook users want to see fewer publisher articles in their feeds, according to a US survey of 526 random participants by social engagement platform Spot.IM.

On the one hand, the study reveals the apathy that a large portion of Facebook users, especially older ones, feel toward news articles. But the study also points out encouraging signs for the future of news consumption on social media.

Here are some highlights from Spot.IM’s survey on user consumption of digital media in the US: 

• Most people don’t care about the quantity of news content. The majority of people (51%) don’t care about seeing more or less articles in their Facebook feed. This could demonstrate complete satisfaction, but probably reflects indifference, with the frequency of news articles in their feed. 
• In fact, older people want to see fewer articles in their feeds. More than a third of respondents across the 30-44 (37%), 45-59 (36%) and 60 and over (36%) age groups want less news articles in their feeds. This is unfortunate for publishers who have come to rely predominantly on Facebook as a distribution channel to reach users.
• But young users are keen for news articles in their feeds. The silver lining is that, compared to their older counterparts, respondents aged between 18-29 are significantly more eager to receiving more news articles in their Facebook feed. This bodes well for digital publishers hoping to reach the next generation of news consumers.
• Barely anyone has a paid subscription to a digital publication. Eighty-eight percent of respondents do not subscribe to an online news service like WSJ.com or NYTimes.com, each of which have metered paywalls on their sites. Predictably, those who don’t pay for subscriptions skew young –only 4% of 18-29 year olds and 7% of 30-44 year olds own subscriptions, compared with 14% and 21% for those between 45 and 59 and 60 and over, respectively. The lack of adoption for paid subscriptions among young respondents is discourages the credence of this business model. 

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