What Can Happen In An Internet Minute - 47,000 app downloads, 6 million Facebook views, 20 new victims of identity theft (wah-wah)
UPDATED: Internet user demographics, as of Sept. 2012
As of August 2012, 85% of American adults use the internet, up from 82% in April and 80% in February.
Those with no high school diploma are the least likely to use the internet - 61%.
See more: pewrsr.ch/JCxHSa & pewrsr.ch/NgJGmd
(Source: pewinternet.org)
"[Caregivers] are creating the tools that they need, just as hackers create the tools that they need."
— Susannah Fox, in GigaOM’s article on our new report
(Source: gigaom.com)
New report: For the first time, half of seniors use the internet. As of April 2012, 53% of American adults age 65 and older use the internet or email. Though these adults are still less likely than all other age groups to use the internet, the latest data represent the first time that half of seniors are going online. After several years of very little growth among this group, these gains are significant.
Today, we’ve got a new report out that shows while increased internet adoption and the rise of mobile connectivity have reduced many gaps in technology access over the past decade, differences in internet access still exist among different demographic groups, especially when it comes to access to high-speed broadband at home. Among the findings:
- One in five American adults does not use the internet
- Among adults who do not use the internet, almost half have told us that the main reason they don’t go online is because they don’t think the internet is relevant to them
- The 27% of adults living with disability in the U.S. today are significantly less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%). Furthermore, 2% of adults have a disability or illness that makes it more difficult or impossible for them to use the internet at all
- Though overall internet adoption rates have leveled off, adults who are already online are doing more
Internet access is no longer synonymous with going online with a desktop computer:
- Currently, 88% of American adults have a cell phone, 57% have a laptop, 19% own an e-book reader, and 19% have a tablet computer; about six in ten adults (63%) go online wirelessly with one of those devices.
- Groups that have traditionally been on the other side of the digital divide in basic internet access are using wireless connections to go online
New report out today: 72% of Americans follow local news closely
Most adults follow local news closely, and many rely heavily on local newspapers to keep them informed. Yet, younger local news followers differ from their older counterparts in some important ways, potentially signaling changes to come in the local news environment …
Find out more about these local news enthusiasts, the sources they rely on, and key generational differences in the full report.
"It occurred to me that if Uncle Burt went online, for the first time in his life he could have relationships that were not limited by his disabilities. I was able to put him in touch with some of my friends and he communicated with some people who shared his affection for the soap opera, “Days of Our Lives.” And then, when the web first started, I tried out new search engines with arcane terms like “Moebius Syndrome” and one day, I got a hit. … And Uncle Burt heard for the first time that there were other people like him. For the last year of his life, he was the elder statesman of a very small but very excited community and it would not have been possible without the web."
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The internet’s impact on one man’s life — another great commentary by our Susannah Fox, as recounted to her by Nell Minow.
What will the internet be like in 5 or 10 years?
The Discovery Channel’s Curiosity TV asks and answers questions facing the world today — and our director, Lee Rainie, sat down to answer a bunch of them. Here’s a good one on the future of the internet.
You can view all of his “answers” here.
According to our May 2011 survey, 78% of American adults use the internet. Click here to see what they’re doing online.
New Report: 58% of all adults say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun
Americans are increasingly going online just for fun and to pass the time. On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time. Many of them go online in purposeful ways, as well. But the results of a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project show that young adults’ use of the internet can at times be simply for the diversion it presents. Indeed, 81% of all young adults in this age cohort report they have used the internet for this reason at least occasionally.
These results come in the larger context that internet users of all ages are much more likely now than in the past to say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun. Some 58% of all adults (or 74% of all online adults) say they use the internet this way. And a third of all adults (34%) say they used the internet that way “yesterday” – or the day before Pew Internet reached them for the survey. Both figures are higher than in 2009 when we last asked this question and vastly higher than in the middle of the last decade.
In case you missed it: We recently came out with a great new report with the Project for Excellence in Journalism about how people get news and information about their local community. Some of the major findings include:
- Local TV news remains the most popular source for local information in America, but adults rely on it primarily for just three subjects—weather, breaking news and to a lesser extent traffic.
- Newspapers (both print and on the web) are the source Americans turn to most for a wider range of information than any other source.
- The internet has a strong hold in the local community, as web-only outlets are now the key source of information on some key subjects such as education or local business and restaurants. Among adults under age 40, the internet rivals or surpasses other platforms on every single topic area except one (breaking local news).
Want to learn more? You can explore for yourself the changing ecosystem of how people get local news with this interactive infographic, or read the report in full on our website.
Check out this neat infographic based on our recent research on how people use social networking sites!
(via digitalista)
As of December 2010, 77% of American adults use the internet. Only 14% of adults went online in 1995; the number hit 50% in 2000, and by 2005 seven in ten adults were officially (by our count) “internet users.” The proportion of the American population who uses the internet has been relatively stable over the past few years, bouncing around between 73-79% since 2007.
Want to dig deeper? You can download the data behind this chart as an Excel spreadsheet on our website.
Related charts: See who’s online and what they’re doing there.
