Work

Days, Schedules, and Attention: How Time Affects Mobile News Consumption Among Young Swiss People

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: News consumption is often treated as static behavior, yet situational and temporal factors play a significant role in shaping how individuals consume news throughout their daily lives. Mobile phones have become a driving force of dynamic news habits, especially among younger audiences. This study aims to bridge the gap between static perceptions of news consumption and the dynamic realities of daily mobile usage. To investigate this, we tracked news usage on the mobile phones of 384 young adults in Switzerland over three weeks in 2021, in a period surrounding a national referendum. These data were combined with two surveys at the beginning and end of the tracking period to examine how a political referendum, daily schedules, and browsing habits are related to the amount of mobile news consumption. Using a Bayesian time-lagged model, we found an increase in news consumption on the day of the referendum, and a slight decrease on weekends and during working hours. We also found that participants read more news when they first opened their phones than as a browsing session continued, and that higher news consumption was substantially associated with the use of X/Twitter and Instagram, but only slightly with TikTok.

Source: Mobile Media & Communication

DOI: 10.1177/20501579251376418

Authors: Morley Weston, Daniel Vogler, Adrian Rauchfleisch, Pascal Jürgens, Mark Eisenegger

Institutions: University of Zurich, National Taiwan University, Universität Trier

Language: English

Topic: Media Studies and Communication

Subfield: Communication

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,900

Funders: National Science Foundation, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung