What Can Happen In An Internet Minute - 47,000 app downloads, 6 million Facebook views, 20 new victims of identity theft (wah-wah)
From our new report: Health Online 2013
One in three U.S. adults say that at one time or another they have gone online specifically to try to figure out what medical condition they or someone else might have. And yet medical professionals are still most people’s top choice when they are dealing with a serious health concern.
“Online health information is available day or night, at no cost, and the internet has become a de facto second opinion for many people,” says Susannah Fox, an associate director of the Project and lead author of the report. “The open search box invites people to begin their journey toward better health, but this study shows that the internet is just one piece of the puzzle. Clinicians are still central.”
Read more in the full report: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online.aspx
The growth of social media and the rapid adoption of internet-enabled mobile devices have changed the way Americans engage in the political process. Here’s a summary of the latest data from national surveys taken during the 2012 campaign.
Politics goes digital.
How some of the most popular cell phone activities have grown, over time:
- In 2010, 76% of cell owners used their phone to take pictures. NOW: 82%
- TEXTING: 2007 = 58%. Now = 80%
- ACCESSING THE INTERNET: 2008 = 25%. Now = 56%
- SEND/RECEIVE EMAIL: 2007 = 19%. Now = 50%
- RECORD VIDEO: 2007 = 18%. Now = 44%
- DOWNLOAD APPS: 2009= 22%. Now = 43%
- LOOK FOR HEALTH INFO: 2010= 17%. Now = 31%
- CHECK BANK ACCOUNT: 2011 = 18%. Now = 29%
Do We Really Behave Badly on Social Media?
We recently studied the tone of life on social networking sites and found that 85% of social-network-using adults say their experience on the sites is that people are mostly kind. That compares with 69% of social-network-using teens who say their experience is that peers are mostly kind to each other in social network spaces.
We also found:
- 68% of SNS users (adults) said they had an experience that made them feel good about themselves.
- 61% had experiences that made them feel closer to another person. (Many said they had both experiences.)
- 39% of SNS-using adults say they frequently see acts of generosity by other SNS users and another 36% say they sometimes see others behaving generously and helpfully. By comparison, 18% of SNS-using adults say they see helpful behavior “only once in a while” and 5% say they never see generosity exhibited by others on social networking sites.
And
- 15% of adult SNS users said they had an experience on the site that ended their friendship with someone.
- 12% of adult SNS users had an experience that resulted in a face-to-face argument or confrontation with someone.
- 11% of adult SNS users had an experience on the site that caused a problem with their family.
- 3% of SNS-using adults said they had gotten into a physical fight with someone based on an experience they had on the site.
- 3% of adult SNS users said their use of the site had gotten them in trouble at work because of something that happened on the site.
For more on the social networking climate of adults and teens, see http://pewrsr.ch/zRQVuI and http://pewrsr.ch/rUmUXH
Awesome infographic for your Tuesday morning: Are You In Control of Your Social Media Privacy?
Our recent report on privacy management on social media sites found that social network users are becoming more active in pruning and managing their accounts, and women and younger users tend to unfriend more than others. In addition:
- More than half of social networking site users (58%) say their main profile is set to private so that only friends can see it
- 67% of female profile owners restrict access to friends only compared with 48% of male profile owners
- 11% of SNS users have posted content they regret, and male profile owners are almost twice as likely as female profile owners to profess regret for posting content (15% vs. 8%)
Graphic of the week: How smartphone owners describe their phones
In our first standalone measure of smartphone ownership, we found that two in five cell owners (42%) own a smartphone as of May 2011. Since 83% of Americans own some kind of mobile phone, this means that one-third of all American adults (35%) are smartphone owners.
When asked to provide the one word that best describes how they feel about their phones, The three most common words were “good” (mentioned by 10% of smartphone owners), “great” and “convenient” (each mentioned by 7% of smartphone owners). Overall, 72% of smartphone owners used a positive word (such as “good”, “great”, “excellent” or “convenient”) to describe their phones, 16% used a negative description (such as “expensive” or “frustrated/frustrating”) and 12% offered a neutral word choice (such as “adequate”, “OK”, “fair” or “fine”).
“Mormons in America”
Via The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Many Mormons feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans as part of mainstream society. Yet, at the same time, a majority of Mormons think that acceptance of Mormonism is rising.
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.
Among teen social media users:
- 93% have an account on Facebook
- 24% have an account on MySpace
- 12% have an account on Twitter
- 7% have an account on a Yahoo site
- 6% have an account on YouTube
- 2% have an account on each of the following: Skype, myYearbook, and Tumblr
- 1% have an account on Google Buzz
Read more in our recent report: Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites.
Another neat infographic based on our research: What are people doing online? (As always, you can learn more about online activities & general trend data for the past ten years on our website.)
