Just 27% Regularly Buy Print Version of Newspapers
Despite living in the digital age, a majority of Americans still prefer reading a hard copy of their daily news than poring over a computer screen. However, that preference doesn’t translate to their behavior.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of American Adults prefer the experience of reading a printed version of the newspaper rather than an online version. Twenty-eight percent (28%) prefer to do their reading online. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
However, nearly half (48%) say they rarely or never buy the print version of their local newspaper. Twenty-seven percent (27%), though, say they buy it every day or nearly every day. Adults over 40 are also almost twice as likely as adults under 40 to regularly buy a print version of their local newspaper.
These figures are little changed from a year ago. Separate polling finds that 85% of adults also still own a print version of the dictionary.
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The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on May 12-13, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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