Extra Extra or Extra Short: Young Adults and Embracing Summarized News Formats

Abstract

Daily email newsletters that quickly summarize current issues have recently and rapidly gained popularity, particularly among younger and college-educated readers. This study measures how the format of a summarized news piece affects college-aged young adults. Two hundred and forty-three Duke students participated in an online study which analyzed the differences of recall ability from exposure to a summarized news format, a traditional news article format, and a video format. Participants were given news in one of the three formats, regarding the same topic with similar content, and all participants took a standardized quiz regarding the topic. Results from the quiz indicated no significant difference in terms of recall ability among the three formats. However, students who were exposed to the summarized news format exhibited similar or lower levels of interest, preference for format style, and perceived information usability as compared to the students exposed to other formats. Overall these results suggest that summarized news promotes similar recall levels among young adults as full length articles or news videos, but is not necessarily preferred over these two formats.