When it comes to frequent and multiple ways of accessing mobile news, 51 percent large-screen smartphone or phablet users use two or more sources, compared to 31 percent of standard-size smartphone owners.

Mobile news users skew young - 61 percent of all smartphone users were 18-to-44, compared to 25 percent of those 45-years-old or older, according to the latest Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute mobile media poll of 1,001 standard phone or phablet users nationally.

RJI fellow Roger Fidler writes that survey respondents were asked how often they used their smartphones to retrieve news by each of these five approaches:

• Directly to news organization websites
• Directly to news organization content using their smartphone apps
• Indirectly through links provided by social media users
• Indirectly through links in e-mail messages
• Indirectly by stumbling onto news stories of interest while using smartphones for non-news activities.

Fidler provides the results of the above five approaches in a slide presentation. He notes that when asked whether the size of their smartphone make news easy to read, 67 percent of phablet owners said they somewhat or strongly agreed, compared to 29 percent of standard smartphone owners. “The difference between the 18-to-44 users and 45-to-older groups was about the same,” Fidler writes.