This post's title is the cleanest synopsis of Journalism.org's findings that I could think of.
According to its parent organization, Pew Research, "At the start of 2015, 39 of the top 50 digital news websites have more traffic to their sites and associated applications coming from mobile devices than from desktop computers" — suggesting, at best, only cursory readings of important news stories. It's hard to get deep in the weeds on an iPhone, while on the move and between other distractions.
Perhaps just as disturbing, "Some of [Pew's] 2014 research revealed that nearly half of Web-using adults report getting news about politics and government in the past week on Facebook alone, a platform where influence is driven to a strong degree by friends and algorithms." One of today's more important stories is that of political polarization and intransigent tribalism, which is scarcely surprising, since we're augmenting both sociopolitical trends in our miscellaneous bubbles.
Consider yourself a freak if you read the conservative press; and indeed, I'd wager that most of you are freaks, since the political literacy among readers of this site seems abnormally high. Emphasis on "abnormally," and my sincere thanks. If nearly half of the (other) politically interested are receiving all their political news and information from the likeminded coziness of Facebook friends, and the other rough half are scanning only headlines and maybe ledes between donuts and stoplights, then the American electorate's level of politically sophisticated thought lies somewhere above utter ignorance but well below actual usefulness.
It worries me almost as much as the extreme obscenity of modern political finance — which exploits "it."