Mainstream media may be able to breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now: A study finds that although the Internet has grown significantly in the past decade, it is supplementing traditional outlets such as newspapers and television, not replacing them.

The biennial news consumption survey of 3,204 adults, out today from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that although a growing number of people go online for headlines, most still also go to newspapers and television for in-depth news.

The findings suggest that “for at least the forseeable future, traditional media are going to continue to co-exist with online news, and that the online news experience is a partner to other traditional news sources and not growing fast enough to supplant traditional media,” Andrew Kohut, Pew's president, said Sunday.

The study found that just a decade ago, one in 50 Americans got their news from the Web. Today, one-third of Americans go online for news — mainly to get the headlines. But as the Internet has become more mainstream, its audience growth has slowed considerably since 2000.

Online news viewers still spend more time getting news from traditional sources than they do getting news online. Forty-eight percent of Americans spend at least 30 minutes a day getting news on TV; only 9% spend that long getting news online, the survey finds.

At a time when newspapers across the USA are fighting declining readership with online editions, the survey finds that Web editions are driving readers to their print editions and helping stem further losses.

Online editions, especially of larger national newspapers such as USA TODAY and The New York Times, “seem to be providing a small life raft” for print editions, Kohut said. But the online-only newspaper audience is quite modest in size. Even the highest estimate of daily newspaper readership — 43% for both print and online readers — is still well below the number who read a print newspaper on a typical day 10 years ago (50%).

As Internet news has gone more mainstream, its audience has aged. Since 2000, there has been virtually no increase in the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds who say they regularly get news online, while older groups have seen growth. About as many people ages 50 to 64 now regularly get news on the Internet as do those in their late teens and early 20s.