Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Pew Research, technology and writing.
When you were a teen, did you consider those notes you passed in class “writing?” Probably not. And according to a new Pew report, more than half of teens that are text-messaging at school don’t consider that “writing” either. No surprise, girls (ages 12-17) are much more prolific communicators than boys. Gotta love this quote from one of the older boys : “If it wasn’t for girls, we wouldn’t be talking on the phone or using IM or anything else like that.” For YA librarians already committed to high level programming and services , the new report from the Pew/Internet and American Life Project, “Teens, Technology and Writing,” will validate much of what you do. If your library is developing or reviewing its teen services, it provides strong support for placing programs that encourage writing at the foundation of its strategy.
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Nearly all US teens ages 12 to 17 use the Internet, according to a September-November 2007 Pew Internet & American Life study. The 94% of teen respondents who reported accessing the Internet are doing so frequently. Two-thirds of teenage Internet users (63%) reported going online daily, while 35% use the Internet multiple times per day.
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Published by rwatstein March 29th, 2008
in China, Pew Research, internet and censorship.
Many Americans assume that China’s internet users are unhappy about their government’s control of the internet, but a new survey by Chinese researchers finds most Chinese say they approve of internet regulation, especially by the government.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in Pew Research and demographics.
Pew Research canvassing of longtime internet users shows that the things that first brought them online are still going strong on the internet today. Then, it was bulletin boards; now, it’s social networking sites. Then, it was the adventure of exploring the new cyberworld; now, it’s upgrading to broadband and wireless connections to explore even more aggressively. Yet there are changes in their activities and motives. In the early days, most internet users consumed material from websites. These days they are just as likely to produce material. One common refrain is that they think more change lies ahead and they are eager to watch and participate.
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Published by rwatstein January 5th, 2008
in Pew Research, libraries and research.
Young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries despite the ease with which they can access a wealth of information over the Internet from the comforts of their homes, according to a new study. That’s especially true for those who had questions related to health conditions, job training, government benefits and other problems. Twenty-one percent of Americans age 18-30 with such questions have turned to public libraries, compared with about 12 percent among the general adult population with problems to solve. Education-related tasks — making decisions about schooling, paying for it and getting job training — are the most common problems drawing people to libraries, according to a joint study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, “Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help.”
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Published by rwatstein December 22nd, 2007
in Pew Research, research and digital.
Consumers are Googling themselves, and others, so they know that some of their personal information is online. But it doesn’t seem to bother most people. Nearly one-half of US adult Internet users surveyed have used a search engine to look for information about themselves, according to the December 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project’s “Digital Footprints” report.
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Published by rwatstein September 15th, 2007
in Pew Research, digital divide and broadband.
The ritual is familiar to those who follow communications policy: Every six months, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) releases its rankings of per capita broadband adoption rates. Every six months, the United States sees its ranking uncomfortably in the middle of the pack. Then the clamor begins in earnest. Many decry the fact that our rankings are lower than they were just a few years ago, down to 15 in 2006 from number 4 in 2001.1 Others criticize the way the OECD puts together the rankings. Some quarters call for a national broadband strategy so that the United States can recapture its leadership position and others argue that any government-led strategy would do more harm in the marketplace than good. Rankings-driven policy discussion might be helpful to a point, but the tenor of the current debate obscures two critical questions: What is the nature of unmet demand for broadband in the United States? And, secondarily, is home broadband adoption proceeding more slowly in the United States relative to consumer technologies of the past?
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Published by rwatstein September 15th, 2007
in Pew Research, 3D and museums.
A system that makes three dimensional images solid enough to grasp has been unveiled by Japanese firm NTT. It could let businesspeople shake hands from across the globe or allow museum visitors to feel precious exhibits that are normally out of reach, the company says. The prototype Tangible 3D system combines a 3D display with a “haptic glove”. The display creates lifelike images appear in just in front of a flat screen. It creates the illusion of depth by showing slightly different images to each of the viewer’s eyes. This means no special glasses are needed.
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Published by rwatstein September 15th, 2007
in China, Pew Research and demographics.
There are now an estimated 137 million internet users in China, second in number only to the United States, where estimates of the current internet population range from 165 million to 210 million.The growth rate of China’s internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years. The influx of tens of millions of new online participants each year can be expected to have far-reaching consequences for the people of China, for its government and economy, and for the larger world. At the very least, the internet will offer ever greater numbers of Chinese a much more sophisticated information and communications world than the one they currently inhabit.
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Published by rwatstein September 15th, 2007
in Pew Research, web sites and politics.
With its early start and crowded field, the 2008 presidential campaign has generated an extensive amount of media coverage. Since the beginning of the year, the race to become the 44th president of the United States has been the second-biggest story, trailing only the debate over Iraq war strategy. But the mainstream media are not the only information source for citizens seeking news about the candidates. The campaigns themselves, through their official websites, seem to be challenging the press as a destination for campaign news. Furthermore, these highly interactive sites are facilitating everything from blogging to fundraising to social networking. To get a sense of what these sites offer and how the candidates use them, The Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted a detailed study of the official websites of all 19 announced presidential candidates — eight Democrats and 11 Republicans.
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Published by rwatstein July 2nd, 2007
in communities, Pew Research and research.
About one third (32%) of all teenagers who use the internet say they have been targets of a range of annoying and potentially menacing online activities — such as receiving threatening messages; having their private emails or text messages forwarded without consent; having an embarrassing picture posted without permission; or having rumors about them spread online. Of all the online harassment asked about, the greatest number of teens told us that they had had a private communication forwarded or publicly posted without their permission. One-in-six teens (15%) said that someone had forwarded or posted communication they assumed was private. About 13% of teens said that someone had spread a rumor about them online, and another 13% said that someone had sent them a threatening or aggressive email, IM or text message. Some 6% of online teens told us that someone had posted an embarrassing picture of them without their permission. These results come from a nationally-representative phone survey of 935 teenagers by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
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Many internet and cell phone users find devices and applications too complicated or hardly worth the trouble. A new Pew Internet & American Life report discusses why some adult Americans have relatively distant relationships to modern information technology and offers some ideas to address the problem.
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