It likely is more confirmation than discovery, but a new Gather survey of 1,450 people has found that the Internet has displaced television as the channel people turn to for getting and sharing news.

Fully 49 percent of all adults consider the Internet their primary source for news, and about 80 percent also now use the Internet to share news.

Television news, formerly the top source of news, now is the top news source for about 32 percent of respondents. Newspapers and radio each get nine percent ratings as the "top" news source.

Perhaps as big a change as the channel is the new "sharing habit" people have adopted. The survey reveals that the vast majority of adults (82 percent) have interacted around a news story online using comments, and 83 percent of all respondents are comfortable commenting on any variety of news sites.

Also, the decades-long trend to personalized consumption now has reached new levels. More than 65 percent of users between 18 and 24 say they read only stories on topics that interest them: they do not "read" packaged collections of stories on a broad range of topics.

More than a third of respondents use search engines expressly to find multiple perspectives on a news story and nearly 80 percent of adults click on results from news sources they don’t recognize. Those behaviors also illustrate the disaggregated way news content now is gathered. Users do not necessarily "go to" a known trusted "news" source. In fact, Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert) now have become news aggregators and channels.

The survey results also suggest what you have come to expect: that age correlates with behavior.

While 68 percent of those aged 45 and older share news primarily using email, 54 percent of those under the age of 45 share news primarily by Facebook and a full 90 percent of respondents 24 years and younger use Twitter and Facebook to share news.

Overall, the survey shows the shift to a more "social" and personalized approach to news content consumption and sharing, in terms of "content discovery," "distribution" and "consumption," where sharing now is a part of the consumption process.

The findings are significant for participants in the Internet ecosystem as they suggest new roles, features and business models are possible, bound to affect the fortunes of legacy and upstart application providers.