Does Google Make Us Stupid?
Experts and stakeholders say the internet will enhance — not degrade — our intelligence. It will also change the functions of reading and writing and be built around still-unanticipated gadgetry and applications.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Experts and stakeholders say the internet will enhance — not degrade — our intelligence. It will also change the functions of reading and writing and be built around still-unanticipated gadgetry and applications.
One-in-five online Americans are now on Twitter. Those on social networking websites, mobile internet users and young adults have been most responsible for the proliferation of tweets.
The internet is not changing the character of civic engagement, as participation remains the domain of those with high levels of income and education. However, there are hints that forms of civic engagement anchored in blogs and social networking sites could alter long-standing patterns.
Most Americans who have turned to online sources for economic information have also used the internet to take their minds off of their financial troubles, especially younger online economic users.
The number of online adults who say they have visited an online-video site has nearly doubled since 2006, and outpaces other online pastimes such as social networking, downloading podcasts and tweeting. Watching video on sites such as YouTube is near-universal among young adults.
While the economic downturn is falling quite heavily on younger Americans, their overall outlook remains optimistic. A new survey also finds Generation Next expressing more liberal views when compared with older age cohorts as well as evidence of increased political engagement.
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.
The public ranks the internet most useful as a source of information on the virus. Where and how are people finding flu facts online?
A new survey finds that voters expect that the level of public engagement they experienced with Obama during the campaign, much of it occurring online, will continue into the early period of his new administration.
Findings from Pew Research Center polls over the year told the story of the longest — and one of the most exciting — presidential elections in U.S. history as well as recording the public’s reactions to other major events ranging from the pope’s visit, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the onset of a mega-economic downturn.
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