These experts feel that the explosive growth in the use of smartphones and other mobile devices, combined with the convenience, security, and other affordances of mobile payments systems, makes these systems an obvious choice to replace established modes of payment in day-to-day commerce.

Those experts who do not agree with this scenario say cash and credit card will remain the dominant method of carrying out transactions in advanced countries because the security implications raise too many concerns among consumers about the safety of their money. These consumers are also resistant to are resistant to letting technology companies learn even more about their personal purchasing habits.

Read the full report to see the comments of many of the experts who participated in the survey.

Just over half of adult cell owners used their phone while they were in stores during the 2011 holiday shopping season. These shoppers called a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making, to look up online reviews of a product or to check the price of a product to see if they could do better elsewhere.

Read the full report for details on demographic patterns regarding cell phone users.

The first in-depth survey of mobile donors, focusing on individuals who sent a contribution to the Haiti earthquake relief effort using the text messaging, finds that a sizeable majority of donors acted in response to images they saw on television, and involved minimal background research. The vast majority of these donors (89%) heard about the Text to Haiti effort on television, and half (50%) made their contribution immediately upon learning about the campaign. Another 23% donated on the same day they heard about it. In addition to conducting little research before making a donation, most have not paid close attention to the ongoing reconstruction efforts in Haiti — 43% have been following these efforts “not too closely” and 15% have been following them “not at all”.

Read the full report to explore who these mobile givers are; the technologies they own; their involvement with charitable organizations and causes; what other types of mobile contributions they have made; and how they perceive mobile giving in comparison to other types of charitable contributions.

Overview

Nearly two-thirds of internet users (65%) have paid to download or access some kind of online content from the internet, ranging from music to games to news articles. Music, software, and apps are the most popular content that internet users have paid to access or download, although the range of paid online content is quite varied and widespread.

In a survey of 755 internet users between Oct. 28 and Nov. 1 2010, respondents were asked about 15 different kinds of online material that could be purchased or accessed after a payment. The online content assessed in this survey includes only “intangible” digital products such as software, articles and music that need not have a physical form. This is in contrast to previous surveys which were designed to measure the use of the internet to purchase “tangible” products such as clothes, CDs, books, or computers or tangible services such as hotel reservations or airline tickets.

In this survey we asked the following question: “Please tell me if you have ever paid to access or to download any of the following types of online content?” The findings show that:

• 33% of internet users have paid for digital music online.
• 33% have paid for software.
• 21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers.
• 19% have paid for digital games.
• 18% have paid for digital newspaper, magazine or journal articles or reports.
• 16% have paid for videos, movies or TV shows.
• 15% have paid for ringtones.
• 12% have paid for digital photos.
• 11% have paid for members-only premium content from a website that has other free material on it.
• 10% have paid for e-books.
• 7% have paid for podcasts.
• 5% have paid for tools or materials to use in video or computer games.
• 5% have paid for “cheats or codes” to help them in video games.
• 5% have paid to access particular websites such as online dating sites or services.
• 2% have paid for adult content.

And 6% of internet users said they had paid for another kind of content not mentioned in the list of 15 the survey offered.

Of those internet users who have purchased online content, nearly half (46%) have purchased only one or two of the types of content covered in our survey. Some 16% have purchased six or more types of content.

Typical user pays about $10 per month for online content

The average expense for those who have paid for content was approximately $47 per month for material downloaded or accessed, including both subscriptions (an average of $12 per month) and individual file access (an average of $22 per month). However, some extremely high-end users push the average higher, with most purchasers spending about $10 per month.

Accessing and paying for online content

Concerning methods of accessing online content, the majority of the internet users pay for subscription services (23%), versus downloading an individual file (16%), or accessing streaming content (8%).

As shown in Figure 2, most internet users who have accessed online content have utilized only one method of access and payment (66%).

Read the full report at pewinternet.org.

Overview

There are still notable differences by generation in online activities, but the dominance of the Millennial generation that we documented in our first “Generations” report in 2009 has slipped in many activities.

Milliennials, adults ages 18 to 33, remain more likely to access the internet wirelessly with a laptop or mobile phone. In addition, they still clearly surpass their elders online when it comes to:

• Use of social networking sites
• Use of instant messaging
• Using online classifieds
• Listening to music
• Playing online games
• Reading blogs
• Participating in virtual worlds

However, internet users in Gen X (those ages 34 to 45) and older cohorts are more likely than Millennials to engage in several online activities, including visiting government websites and getting financial information online.

Finally, the biggest online trend: While the youngest and oldest cohorts may differ, certain key internet activities are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups. These include:

• Email
• Search engine use
• Seeking health information
• Getting news
• Buying products
• Making travel reservations or purchases
• Doing online banking
• Looking for religious information
• Rating products, services, or people
• Making online charitable donations
• Downloading podcasts

Even in areas that are still dominated by Millennials, older generations are making notable gains. Some of the areas that have seen the fastest rate of growth in recent years include older adults’ participation in communication and entertainment activities online, especially in using social network sites such as Facebook.

Among the major trends in online activities:

• While the youngest generations are still significantly more likely to use social networking sites, the fastest growth has come from internet users ages 74 and older. Social networking site usage for this age cohort has quadrupled since 2008, from 4% to 16%.
• The percentage of all adult internet users who watch video online jumped 14 points in the past two years, from 52% in May 2008 to 66% in May 2010.
• 51% of all online adults listen to music online, compared with 34% the last time this question was asked, in June 2004. While Millennials used to be by far the most avid listeners, Gen Xers and Younger Boomers are catching up.
• As of May 2010, 53% of online adults have used a classified ads website such as Craigstlist, up from 32% in September 2007.

Additionally, searching for health information, an activity that was once the primary domain of older adults, is now the third most popular online activity for all internet users ages 18 and older.

Few of the activities covered in this report have decreased in popularity for any age group, with the notable exception of blogging. Only half as many online teens work on their own blog as did in 2006, and Millennial generation adults ages 18 to 33 have also seen a modest decline — a development that may be related to the quickly-growing popularity of social network sites. At the same time, however, blogging’s popularity increased among most older generations, and as a result the rate of blogging for all online adults rose slightly overall from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010. Yet while the act formally known as blogging seems to have peaked, internet users are doing blog-like things in other online spaces as they post updates about their lives, musings about the world, jokes, and links on social networking sites and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Read the full report at pewinternet.org.

Our recent survey, conducted together with the Project for Excellence in Journalism for their State of the News Media 2010 report, suggests that news consumers are not particularly eager or willing to click on ads. Our study finds that the great majority — 79% — of online news consumers say they have never or only rarely clicked on an online ad.

A section of the online chapter that talks about the rise of social media as a force in disseminating news and as a set of tools that allow people to participate in news is relevant in this regard. One implication of this is that media buyers and planners would be wise to consider social networking as a major pathway for people to learn about, discuss, and engage with news.

Lee Rainie, Director, Internet & American Life Project

In the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s report “The Internet and the Recession“, we identified a group of individuals we call “online economic users”. This group — which comprises 69% of all American adults and 88% of all internet users — includes anyone who has turned to online sources for one or more of the following reasons:

• To keep up with news about the nation’s economy.
• To deal with their own financial situation.
• To share their thoughts about what is happening with the economy.

In that same report, we found that online economic users relied heavily on online sources to make sense of the economic crisis, to adjust their own personal finances and to share their experiences during the recession with others. This data memo, based on a national telephone survey conducted March 26 to April 19, 2009 among 2,253 Americans (including 561 reached via cell phone), evaluates the flip side of that phenomenon: the degree to which people are using the internet as a diversion, and a way to relax and take their minds off of their economic troubles.

Three-quarters of online economic users go online to relax and take their minds off of the recession.

When asked whether they used the internet to relax and help get their minds off of the recent economic or financial problems, three-quarters (74%) of online economic users said they had done so.

Listening to music and watching online videos are among the most common of the activities we evaluated; roughly half of all online economic users have done each of these activities to relax. Approximately one-third of online economic users have played online games or chatted with friends (on a social networking site, listserv or other online group), while an additional 22% have taken their minds off of their economic or financial circumstances by creating or posting content online.

Online economic users under the age of 30 are especially likely to turn to the internet as a diversion, although a range of age groups take part in these activities.

The youngest online economic users (those ages 18-29) are significantly more likely than other age groups to engage in a wide range of online-relaxation activities. Among these young online economic users, three-quarters say that they go online to relax by watching online videos (74%) or listening to music online (73%); roughly half play online games (52%) or go online to chat with friends (55%); and two in five post their own original creations online.

Although the youngest online economic users turn to the internet in the largest numbers to relax and take their minds off of the economy, those in other age groups tend to do so as well. For instance, among online economic users ages 30-49, more than half say they relax by watching online videos (58%) or listening to music online (52%); additionally, one-third play online games (34%) or chat with friends online (33%).

There are few statistically significant differences between male and female online economic users. The exception is chatting with friends online: women (38%) are more likely to do this than men (27%). There are also few significant differences between online economic users based on race, education or household income.

Going online to relax is a near-universal activity among online economic users, regardless of whether they have been personally impacted by the recession or not.

Interestingly, online economic users go online for relaxation or as a diversion at the same rate regardless of their own financial situation, or whether or not they have been personally impacted by the economic downturn. For these online economic users, going online as a diversion or relaxation tool is simply a standard feature of their lives, and not one that is necessarily tied to their personal economic circumstances.

Those who use the internet as a diversion also are highly engaged in other online activities related to the economic recession.

As noted above, many online economic users turn to the internet as a diversion; however, these individuals engage in a wide range of more serious online pursuits as well. For example, fully 76% of those who have gone online to relax or take their minds off of the economy have also gone online to find the lowest price on something they need to buy. Additionally:

• 46% of online economic users who go online as a diversion have also gone online to find or use online coupons.
• 26% have sold personal items on an online auction site.
• 15% have signed up online for automatic updates about economic or financial issues, and an additional 15% have tagged or categorized online content related to economic or financial issues.
• 13% have shared photos, videos or audio files about economic or financial issues.

These individuals are also active in posting their own original online content: 10% of those who go online as a diversion have posted their comments about the recession in an online discussion group or other online forum, and 9% have done so on a blog (their own or someone else’s).

Find survey questions and methodology in the full report at pewinternet.org.

The number of online adults who have used online classified ads has more than doubled in the past four years. Almost half (49%) of internet users say they have ever used online classified sites, compared with 22% of online adults who had done so in 2005.

On any given day about a tenth of internet users (9%) visit online classified sites, up from 4% in 2005.

These are the main findings of an April 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. They highlight the growing importance of such sites to internet users and reflect the changes in the audience for classified ads — both those who place them and those who make purchases — that have devastated a key revenue source for traditional newspapers.

The figures also underscore the growing social role of online classified ads. On May 13, Craigslist eliminated the controversial “erotic services” section of its site and said it would manually review every ad posted in a new “adult services” section it had created. The move came after a Boston medical student was charged with killing a masseuse he had found on the erotic services section of Craigslist.

In the world of online classified advertising, Craigslist is by far the most used website in the United States. In March 2009, classified sites averaged 53.8 million unique visitors, up 7% from February.¹ Craigslist had 42.2 million unique visitors in the month of March.² The free, no-frills, user-generated and self-policing classified ads site has grown tremendously since its start in 1996 in San Francisco. As of April 2009, Craigslist had established itself in over 500 cities across 50 different countries.³ Other online classified sites include Gumtree (primarily UK) and Kijiji (worldwide).

Classified ads sites are a one-stop-”shop” for everything from jobs to apartments to furniture to movers to puppies. However, users don’t buy anything directly on classified websites — they use the sites to set up meetings, and transactions are conducted in person or by mail — a characteristic that separates online classifieds from auction or shopping websites like eBay and Amazon.

Demographics

Age is a significant factor in online classifieds use.

Free online classifieds sites like Craigslist are tremendously popular with young adults moving to new cities, looking for jobs, or trying to find inexpensive goods or roommates. Internet users ages 25-44 are significantly more likely than any other age group — including 18-24 year-olds — to use online classified ads. Fully 62% of online 25-34 year olds and 57% of 35-44 year-olds use online classified ads, compared with 49% of online 18-24 year olds and 48% of online 45-54 year olds.

Internet users age 55 and older are significantly less likely than younger age groups to use online classifieds. Just over a third (35%) of online 55-64 year olds use classified websites, while about a quarter (26%) of internet users age 65 and older do so.

On a typical day, internet users ages 18-44 are also slightly more likely than online adults 55 and older to use classified sites.

Browse the full report, including the entire set of infographics related to this project and a description of the methodology, at pewinternet.org.

<sub>1. “comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for March 2009″ (Reston, VA, April 22, 2009). Available at: http://ir.comscore.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=379203.
2. See above.
3. Craigslist fact sheet, http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet.</sub>