Six percent of Americans online use Reddit

LINK: www.pewinternet.org ➚ | Posted by: Joshua Benton | July 3, 2013

Maybe more interesting: the use of the word “use.” You use Reddit.

Now listen to how strange the verb sounds when put in a news media context. Nine percent of Americans use The New York Times. Fourteen percent of Georgians use The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (Those numbers are made up, by the way.)

There’s something about the platform-fueled intersection between consumption and utility. If news organizations could get their audiences to think of themselves as users rather than just readers/watchers, they’d probably see a commensurate rise in attachment, commitment, and, well, usage.

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Joshua Benton

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