Title: Long-Form Reading Shows Signs of Life in Our Mobile News World | Pew Research Center
Headings: Long-Form Reading Shows Signs of Life in Our Mobile News World
Long-Form Reading Shows Signs of Life in Our Mobile News World
Terminology
Pagination

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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. 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. While 123 seconds – or just over two minutes – may not seem long, and a far cry from the idealized vision of citizens settling in with the morning newspaper, two minutes is far longer than most local television news stories today. And that print newspaper over which people linger contains many separate stories, not just one. In addition, our analysis indicates that this metric almost certainly underestimates the real time spent reading or watching a news story. Specifically, the Parse.ly metrics capture screen movements such as scrolling or clicking, within 5.5 second intervals. While more precise counts of actual user engaged time may still be out of reach with existing methods, what is of most value is the relative difference that emerges between long- and short-form stories. And here the conclusion across this dataset is consistent: People are spending more time on longer stories than on shorter ones, suggesting that engagement can expand to meet the demands of a more in-depth piece. The data also reveal that while shorter news content is far more prevalent than long-form and thus draws more total traffic, long-form articles are accessed at nearly the same rate.