What do millennials want? How different are they from their predecessors, Gen X? And how different is the post-millennial generation, Gen Z, compared to their predecessors?

To answer these questions, Mint teamed up with the Indian arm of the market researcher YouGov to conduct an online poll of over 5,000 respondents spread across 180 cities. The YouGov-Mint Millennial Survey aims to understand the habits and preferences of India’s digital natives. The first round of the survey was conducted in July and the next round will be conducted after six months.

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The results of the first round show that millennials are using social media networks much more than older cohorts. The survey also shows that most millennials and post-millennials consume news online, with only a minority of the youth watching TV news or reading newspapers.

In this analysis, millennials refer to those born between 1981 and 1996 or those aged 22 to 37 years in 2018. Those born after 1996, that is, those aged 21 years or below, are here referred to as the Gen Z.

The difference among generations when it comes to news habits is starkest for television news. Among Gen X (those aged 38-53), 34% depend primarily on TV news and 29% depend primarily on newspapers. Less than a quarter of them depend primarily on news apps and websites. In stark contrast, a plurality of post-millennials (34%) depends primarily on news apps and websites, while only 18% of them depend primarily on TV news. The share of post-millennials depending primarily on newspapers (17%) as a key source of information is roughly similar to those depending on TV news (18%).

The survey also shows that the share of millennials watching online entertainment (48%) exceeds the share of millennials watching cable television (43%). Among post-millennials, the difference is even starker: 44% of them watch online entertainment content.

The survey results confirm what media analysts have been hinting at for some time—that the media and entertainment sector in India is facing disruption.

While post-millennials are a bit less politically active, millennials seem to be as active as their previous generation. More than 80% of both Gen X and millennials said they would vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. These and other interesting findings from the survey will feature in a four-part data journalism series to be published in Mint starting today.