News apps are part of a wider digital news habit rather than an isolated channel. In the Pew Research Center’s 2025 News Platform Fact Sheet, 86% of U.S. adults said they get news at least sometimes from a smartphone, computer or tablet, while 56% said they do so often. News websites and apps were used often by 27% and sometimes by another 37%.
Contents
- Digital devices and news apps
- How news apps compare with other channels
- Who uses news websites and apps
- Who prefers news websites and apps
- Education, race and political differences
- The app infrastructure of major outlets
Digital devices and news apps
The broadest digital-device measure is substantially larger than the narrower news-app measure. In 2025, 86% of U.S. adults said they got news at least sometimes from a smartphone, computer or tablet. The corresponding “often” figure was 56%. These figures describe digital access across devices and do not mean that every instance occurred inside a dedicated news app.
For news websites or apps specifically, 27% of U.S. adults said they often got news from them, while 37% said they sometimes did. Another 18% said they rarely used these sources for news, and 17% said they never did. Together, the “often” and “sometimes” figures describe a 64% level of regular or occasional use in the 2025 Pew Research Center measure.
The same source measured several adjacent digital routes. Nineteen percent of U.S. adults said they often got news from search engines, and 21% said they often got news from social media. Podcasts reached 10% for often, email newsletters reached 6%, and AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini reached 2%.
These figures separate the destination from the device. A person may read a publisher’s article on a phone after finding it through search or social media, while another may open a publisher’s app directly. The dataset reports these channels as distinct answers, so the percentages should be read as channel measures rather than as mutually exclusive shares of the population.
How news apps compare with other channels
News websites and apps sit inside a media environment that still includes television, radio and print. In the 2025 Pew Research Center News Platform Fact Sheet, 64% of U.S. adults said they got news from television at least sometimes, and 32% said they did so often. Radio reached 11% for often, while printed newspapers or magazines reached 7% for often.
For preference, 21% of U.S. adults said they preferred news websites or apps. Social media was the preferred route for 14%, search for 10%, podcasts for 6%, and email newsletters for 3%. Preference is not the same measure as usage: someone can often encounter news through social media while still preferring a publisher’s website or app.
| News route | Often get news | Prefer this route |
|---|---|---|
| News websites or apps | 27% | 21% |
| Social media | 21% | 14% |
| Search engines | 19% | 10% |
| Podcasts | 10% | 6% |
| Email newsletters | 6% | 3% |
The comparison shows a consistent gap between frequent use and stated preference for each listed digital route. The largest listed “often” figure belongs to news websites or apps at 27%, while their preference figure is 21%. The table does not rank the channels by total reach because the supplied figures for several channels cover “often” only, while the news-app usage figures also include “sometimes” and “rarely.”
Who uses news websites and apps
The 2025 Pew Research Center figures show moderate differences by sex. Sixty-six percent of men and 64% of women said they got news often or sometimes from news websites or apps. The two-point difference is smaller than the variation across several age, education and race groups.
Age patterns are not a simple straight line. Among adults ages 18 to 29, 60% said they got news often or sometimes from news websites or apps. The figure was 68% among adults ages 30 to 49 and 71% among those ages 50 to 64. Among adults ages 65 and older, it was 57%.
The highest figure in this age breakdown was therefore among adults ages 50 to 64, at 71%. The lowest was among adults ages 65 and older, at 57%. Adults ages 18 to 29 were at 60%, while adults ages 30 to 49 were at 68%. These are group-level percentages for the 2025 measurement and do not describe individual app-download behavior, session frequency or time spent.
A news product designed for a broad audience should therefore distinguish reach from intensity. The age results indicate that websites and apps were a common news route across every listed age group, but the reported share varied from 57% to 71%. The figures alone do not identify why those differences occurred or which product features users chose.
Who prefers news websites and apps
Preference for news websites or apps also varied by sex and age in the 2025 Pew Research Center data. Twenty-three percent of men preferred this route, compared with 19% of women. By age, 19% of adults ages 18 to 29 preferred news websites or apps, compared with 24% of adults ages 30 to 49, 23% of adults ages 50 to 64, and 16% of adults ages 65 and older.
The age pattern for preference differs in scale from the age pattern for use. Adults ages 65 and older had the lowest stated preference, at 16%, and the 18-to-29 group was at 19%. Adults ages 30 to 49 recorded the highest preference figure in the supplied age breakdown, at 24%, followed by adults ages 50 to 64 at 23%.
The distinction matters for journalism and media innovation. A channel can be used regularly without being the audience’s first-choice way to receive news. In this dataset, 64% of U.S. adults used news websites or apps often or sometimes, while 21% preferred them. Those two measures answer different questions: habitual or occasional access on one hand, and stated preference on the other.
Education, race and political differences
Education was associated with a wider spread in both reported use and preference. Among adults with a high school education or less, 55% said they got news often or sometimes from news websites or apps. The figure was 65% among adults with some college education and 75% among adults with a college degree or more.
Preference followed the same ordering in the supplied education groups. Thirteen percent of adults with a high school education or less preferred news websites or apps, compared with 20% of adults with some college education and 31% of adults with a college degree or more.
| Education group | Often or sometimes use | Prefer news websites or apps |
|---|---|---|
| High school education or less | 55% | 13% |
| Some college education | 65% | 20% |
| College degree or more | 75% | 31% |
The race and ethnicity breakdown also shows differences. Sixty-seven percent of White adults, 61% of Black adults, 58% of Hispanic adults and 70% of Asian adults said they got news often or sometimes from news websites or apps. Preference figures were 23% for White adults, 15% for Black adults, 17% for Hispanic adults and 26% for Asian adults.
Political-group figures were close for the specific websites-and-apps measure: 64% of Republicans and Republican leaners and 68% of Democrats and Democratic leaners said they got news often or sometimes from news websites or apps. A separate digital-device measure was wider: 64% for Republicans and Republican leaners versus 87% for Democrats and Democratic leaners. Because these are different measures, the figures should not be treated as a direct contradiction or combined into one estimate.
The app infrastructure of major outlets
Audience behavior is only one part of the news-app picture. Pew Research Center’s Trends and Facts on Online News measured the product presence of the highest-traffic U.S. news outlets in October 2023. At least one iOS or Android app was available for 74% of those outlets. Sixty-seven percent had apps on both iOS and Android.
The remaining platform patterns were smaller: 2% of the highest-traffic outlets had an Android-only app, and 6% had an iOS-only app. These figures describe outlet availability in October 2023, not downloads, active users, ratings, retention or revenue.
The same October 2023 outlet review found that 92% offered newsletters. Eighty-seven percent had an official presence on Apple News. In other words, the reported publisher ecosystem extended beyond standalone apps to newsletters and a major news aggregation platform.
| Product or distribution presence | Share of highest-traffic U.S. news outlets, October 2023 |
|---|---|
| App on at least one of iOS or Android | 74% |
| Apps on both iOS and Android | 67% |
| Android-only app | 2% |
| iOS-only app | 6% |
| Newsletters | 92% |
| Official presence on Apple News | 87% |
The outlet figures and the audience figures measure different parts of the system. The 74% and 67% app-presence statistics describe the availability of publisher products among high-traffic outlets in October 2023. The 2025 audience statistics describe how U.S. adults reported getting and preferring news. Together, they show app distribution as one element in a broader digital publishing strategy that also includes newsletters, Apple News, search, social media and direct web access.