Survey: One quarter of Americans get their news via mobile

Twenty-six percent of American adults now read news on their mobile handsets according to a new survey published by the Pew Research Center. Among users who turn to the mobile web for information, 72 percent check weather reports, 68 percent browse headlines and current events, 44 percent target sports scores and related news, 35 percent scope out traffic information and 32 percent seek financial information and updates. In addition, Pew Research reports that 49 percent of mobile news consumers have downloaded a mobile application that allows them to access headlines, weather, sports or other information, and 31 percent receive news alerts sent by text or email.

Pew Research finds that mobile subscribers under the age of 50 are almost three times as likely as older consumers to access news on their phones. The average mobile news consumer is a white male, age 34, with a college degree and a full-time job--40 percent of mobile news consumers are parents of young children (compared with 30 percent of the general adult population), and 32 percent have never been married. Thirty-two percent live in households with incomes of $75,000 or more. Fifty-five percent turn to at least four different news platforms on a typical day, and are 50 percent more likely than other adults to read the print version of a national newspaper.

Mobile news consumers also maximize other facets of their handsets--Pew Research reports they are 67 percent more likely than other cell phone users to text message, more than twice as likely to snap photos with their phones and four times as likely to use their phones for instant messaging. Eighty percent are online on a given day, 73 percent use social networking sites and 29 percent update their status on sites like Twitter.

For more on Americans' mobile news behaviors:
- read this Pew Research Center report

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