---
title: "The Mobile Difference"
description: "Lee Rainie will discuss the Project’s latest findings about how people use mobile devices, and how the changing media ecosystem is affecting the way people receive, share, and create information."
date: "2011-07-14"
authors:
  - name: "Lee Rainie"
    job_title: "Former Director, Internet and Technology Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/lee-rainie/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2011/07/14/the-mobile-difference-3/"
categories:
  - "Digital Divide"
  - "Emerging Technology"
  - "Mobile"
  - "Social Media"
tags:
  - "New Media Ecology"
  - "Web 2.0"
---

# The Mobile Difference

http://www.slideshare.net/PewInternet/the-mobile-difference

Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, will discuss the Project’s latest findings about how people use [mobile devices](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Topics/Technology-and-Media/Mobile.aspx), including [smartphones](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Reports/2011/Smartphones.aspx) and [tablet computers](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Reports/2011/E-readers-and-tablets.aspx) (iPads). He will describe how mobile connectivity has changed some of the racial and ethnic composition of the online population and shrunken the digital divide. He will explore how the mobile revolution has combined with the [social networking revolution](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Topics/Activities-and-Pursuits/Social-Networking.aspx) to produce new kinds of learning and sharing environments and how this has changed users’ expectations about the availability of media and information. Further, he will describe how people’s experience of the internet is different when people access it on different sized screens (i.e. small handheld screens vs. large desktop screens). And he will consider how [the changing media ecosystem](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Topics/Technology-and-Media/New-media-ecology.aspx) is affecting the way people receive, share, and create information.

For more information, please visit [the webcast website](http://net.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=619&bhcp=1) or follow the hashtag [#EDULive](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EDULive) on Twitter for live updates.