WASHINGTON—Credit unions that have been urged by numerous social media strategists to provide their members with information in small amounts may want to rethink the approach.
Bite-size news items tailored to smartphones may not be all that people want, according to a new study that shows longer stories receive more attention on mobile devices.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center shows that those reading on mobile devices actually spend more time with longer articles on their phones than they do with shorter ones.
“In a news environment so dramatically different from past forms, the question is worth exploring: Will people engage with lengthy news content on their phones?” Pew asked.
A new study of online reader behavior by the Pew Research Center, conducted in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, addressed that question from the angle of time spent with long- versus short-form news.
“It suggests the answer is yes: When it comes to the relative time consumers spend with this content, long-form journalism does have a place in today’s mobile-centric society,” Pew said.
To understand how mobile users interact with news, the study utilized audience behavior metrics provided by the web analytics firm Parse.ly, a company that supplies real-time and historical analytics to a broad mix of digital publishers, including over 170 top media companies, Pew explained.
All told, Center researchers spent months digging deeply into the details of 117 million anonymized, complete cellphone interactions with 74,840 articles from 30 news websites in the month of September 2015.
“The analysis finds that despite the small screen space and multitasking often associated with cellphones, consumers do spend more time on average with long-form news articles than with short-form.” Pew said. “Indeed, the total engaged time with articles 1,000 words or longer averages about twice that of the engaged time with short-form stories: 123 seconds compared with 57.”
This gap between short- and long-form content in engaged time remains consistent across time of day and the pathway taken to get to the news story, Pew said.
However, when looking solely within either short- or long-form content, engaged time varies significantly depending on how the reader got to the article, whether it is midday or evening, and even what topic the article covers, according to the study.