Forty Years of Cell Phone Calls
Our recent surveys show that 87% of American adults have a cell phone, along with 78% of American teenagers ages 12 to 17.
Teens and Technology: Live Discussion Transcript
Pew Research Center’s Amanda Lenhart and Lee Rainie took questions from readers about our “Teens and Tech” report in a Facebook chat conducted March 14, 2013.
Networked: The New Social Operating System
In their new book, “Networked,” Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, and Barry Wellman show how the large, loosely knit social circles of networked individuals expand opportunities for learning, problem solving, decision making and personal interaction.
Facebook: A Profile of its ‘Friends’
For years, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been polling people who use social media, asking how they use it and what they get out of it. The results paint an interesting picture of what kind of people use sites such as Facebook, who they are connected to and how they manage their privacy.
The Future of Cloud Computing
Technology experts and stakeholders say they expect internet users will ‘live mostly in the cloud’ in 2020 and not on the desktop, working through cyberspace-based applications accessed through networked devices.
The Semantic Web
Technology experts and stakeholders are divided over whether a world in which software agents carry out sophisticated tasks for users is on the immediate horizon.
The State of Music Online: Ten Years after Napster
While Napster morphed from its lawless larval stage to a dues-paying music service, consumers have had their pick of surviving free, peer-to-peer applications. And while the music industry has been on the front lines of the battle to convert freeloaders into paying customers, their efforts have been watched closely by other digitized industries.
Generations Online in 2009
Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their twenties do not dominate every aspect of online life. Gen X is the most likely to shop, bank and look for health information online. And larger percentages of older generations are doing many more activities online.
Obama’s Online Opportunities
For a host of reasons, the new administration needs to develop a national broadband strategy but research suggests that users must be central actors in its design.
Podcasts Proliferate, But Not Mainstream
Nearly one in five internet users (19%) has downloaded a podcast to listen to or view later — up from 12% in 2006. But podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of internet users, as very few download podcasts on a typical day.




