Media Habits of Millennials

Millennials, also known as Gen Y, are those young adults born sometime between the early 1980’s and the early 1990’s.  These 23-33 year olds are becoming more and more influential; they are starting their careers and families, and they will soon be the driving force in the population.

The media habits of Millennials are drastically different from young adults a generation ago.  According to a report in a recent edition of Inside Radio, 30% of Millennials daily media time is primarily spent with user-generated content (UGC).  UGC wasn’t even invented a generation ago!  According to Wikipedia, UGC is defined as including (but not limited to) digital video, blogging, podcasting, forums, review-sites, social networking, social media, mobile phone photography and wikis.

Traditional media like television and radio only consume 10% and 7% of Millennials' media time respectively:

Medium	% of Daily Media Time
User Generated Copy (UGC)	30%
Surfing the Internet	20%
Watching TV	10%
Playing Computer or Video Games	10%
Radio	7%

Not surprisingly, 71% of Millennials use social media on a daily basis, compared to 60% who report watching live TV and 53% who listen to radio daily; (this radio figure includes both broadcast and streaming).  And while 37% visit a news site online, only 18% read a print publication.

Millennials also report finding user generated copy 35% more memorable than other media sources, and 40% more trustworthy.

As we move forward, it is clear that traditional media’s audience and influence will continue to slip in favor of digital video, blogs, review sites, social media, photo sharing sites and whatever newer platforms arise.  Oh yeah, the times they are a changin’

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