Derek Thompson discusses new data from Pew that suggests young adult Americans are looking for “print-like” experiences when reading online news:

But a new report from the Pew Research Center (pdf) suggests that, when it comes to reading the news on mobile devices, young people aren’t so different. First, they use their tablets and smartphones to read the news at nearly identical rates to 30- and 40-somethings. According to Pew, between 30 and 50 percent of practically every demographic, except seniors, uses mobile phones and tablets to read news — whether it’s men or women, college-educated or not, making less than $30,000 per year or more than $75,000. All told: Thirtysomethings and fortysomethings are just as likely as teens and twentysomethings to use their smartphones and tablets for news…

Here’s another surprise. Young mobile readers don’t want apps and mobile browsers that look like the future. They want apps that look like the past: 58% of those under 50, and 60% of Millennials, prefer a “print-like experience” over tech features like audio, video, and complex graphics. That preference toward plain text “tends to hold up across age, gender and other groups.” Pew reports: “Those under 40 prefer the print-like experience to the same degree as those 40 and over.”

While this report suggests different age groups consume news in similar ways, even with differences in video watching and how much news they share, I wonder if they get the same things out of their reading. Are they reading different kinds of stories? On different websites? Are they reading the same volume of news stories? Physically reading the screen in the same way? Reading the news with the same purposes? Retaining the same information? Wanting to read “print-like” news with similar devices means something but I suspect there could still be some major differences between these groups.