Seven-in-ten online adults (71%) report watching videos on a video-sharing site such as YouTube or Vimeo. That represents a five-percentage-point increase from the 66% of online adults who reported being video-sharing site users a year earlier and a 38-point increase from five years ago when the Pew Internet Project took its first reading on use of such sites. Rural internet users are now just as likely as users in urban and suburban areas to have used these sites. Some 68% of rural internet users have gone to such sites, compared with 71% of online suburbanites and 72% of online urban residents. Eight-in-ten online non-whites (79%) — African-Americans, Hispanics and others — reported using video-sharing sites while the percentage of white internet users visiting the sites was 69%. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.