Study: Teens Have Little 'Attachment' to Newspapers

By: Jennifer Saba On Tuesday, the Newspaper Association of American will release a study examining the emotional attachment that teenagers have to newspapers, says NAA Vice President of Readership Integration Randy Bennett.

For the most part, and this should come as no surprise, teens don't really have an emotional attachment to newspapers. The NIE (Newspapers in Education) program does a good job covering elementary schools and college students but there's a gaping hole when it comes time to reaching teens in high schools, says Bennett. "We want to communicate to the industry a better way to engage with teens."

Conducted by Stamford, Conn.-based North Castle Partners, a marketing research firm with an emphasis on teens, the study held a series of focus groups over a five-month period. Both Bennett and North Castle's founding partner Jon Iafeliece stress the research is qualitative, not quantitative. The study involved over 100 teens ages 15-19 from Stamford, Conn.; Seattle; Augusta, Ga.; and Memphis, Tenn.

"In our minds [teens] represent the biggest opportunities to affect long-term readership," Iafeliece says. He also notes that teens spend $175 billion a year. "The earlier you get to a group, the more likely they will carry on that habit for life."

The research breaks out findings in three ways: Content and format, strategic positioning and influencers.

In terms of content, teens are looking for short, concise articles and lots of bullet points. "They don't want the news dumbed down, they just want it more concise," Iafeliece says.

Teens look to their parents for lessons in respect and honesty. Furthermore, the research gives credence to the idea that if parents read newspapers, their children are more likely to read papers too. Papers should borrow from anti-drug campaigns that encourage parents to talk to their teens about reading papers, Iafeliece suggests.

Papers still have a ways to go in the eyes of teens as, overall, newspapers get a bad rap. Iafeliece recalls that when they showed pictures of teens reading newspapers during school, the focus groups tended to snicker. Some said the teens were nerdy; others said they were only showing off.

"Their point was, it just didn't fit," he says. "Why not deliver 100 copies to the high school and get it into their hands -- get kids used to observing other kids reading."