Why are young adults turning away from news — and what does that mean for anyone trying to reach them?

News use among young audiences is declining worldwide, reshaping the communication landscape for organizations, public actors, and companies alike. This isn’t just about shorter attention spans — it’s about how young people navigate an information environment where relevance, trust, and timing follow new rules.

At Innovation Station Flemingsberg, Södertörns högskola are hosting a higher seminar in Media Technology titled “Now sense of place: a socio-technical approach to declining news use among young adults.”

The seminar is presented by Professor Stina Bengtsson, a leading scholar in Media and Communication Studies. Her research explores how people coexist with media in everyday life from phenomenological, spatial, material, and ethical perspectives.

The session dives into young adults’ relationship with digital information through a socio-technical lens, inspired by Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities. It examines how time, place, and language shape what young people choose to engage with, talk about, and share.

Why do news sometimes feel expensive, overwhelming, or negative to young users? How do they decide what’s worth paying attention to? And what does this mean for organizations trying to communicate in an increasingly fragmented media landscape?

For anyone working in communication, public outreach, innovation, education, or policy, this seminar offers research-driven insights into the evolving information habits of young adults — and how we might better meet them where they are.

If you want to understand how young people actually navigate today’s digital information world, this seminar is for you.