Long form reading shows signs of life in our mobile news world

Pew Research Center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, wanted to explore how the rise in mobile devices impacted long-form content. Using anonymized data from Parse.ly’s database of hundreds of news and media sites, it was able to analyze this trend.

We learned that long-form journalism does have a place in today’s mobile-centric society, including:

  • Long-form stories attract visitors at nearly the same rate as short-form stories.
  • Across all five distinct parts of the day, readers spend about twice the time with long-form news content on their cellphones as with short-form.
  • No matter how readers arrive at specific content (through a link from an external website, social media, search, etc.), engaged time for long-form content regularly extends beyond that of short-form content.