Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Access to the internet is considered so vital that in 2016 the United Nations passed a nonbinding resolution to make disruption of internet access a violation of human rights. And while governments and private companies are working to increase access to the internet the world over, many in emerging and developing countries remain non-internet users. […]
YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular online platforms among teens. Fully 95% of teens have access to a smartphone and 45% say they are online almost constantly.
Across 39 countries, a median of 53% say they use online social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. However, that figure conceals large differences around the world, and the relationship between social media use and national wealth is not as strong as it is for overall internet use and smartphone ownership. For example, the Middle […]
The greatest share of participants in this canvassing said their own experience and their observed experience among friends is that digital life improves many of the dimensions of their work, play and home lives. They cited broad changes for the better as the internet revolutionized everything, from the most pressing intellectual and emotional experiences to […]
Just 31% of Americans say it would be very hard to give up their TV, down from 2006. In contrast, roughly half of cellphone owners say it would be very hard to give up their cellphone.
A number of these experts wrote about both sides of the story, taking the time to point out some of the ways in which digital life is a blessing and a curse. A selection of these mixed-response anecdotes follows. James M. Hinton, an author, commented, “Having grown up in the pre-internet era, my childhood was […]
There were considerably fewer complaints about the personal impact among these expert respondents. But their own lives and observations give testimony that there are ways in which digital life has ill-served some participants. The following anecdotes speak to the themes that the internet has not helped some users’ well-being. If someone would have told me […]
About half of the people responding in this study were in substantial agreement that the positives of digital life will continue to outweigh the negatives. However, as in all great technological revolutions, digital life has and will continue to have a dark side. Roughly a third of respondents predicted that harms to well-being will outweigh […]
The core question guiding this study explores experts’ attitudes about the future of people’s well-being. A plurality of the participants endorsed the abundant positives of digital life and said they expect humans and technologies will continue to build upon them. On balance, this hopeful group argued that the beneficial impact of digital life will make […]
Many experts say digital life will continue to expand people’s boundaries and opportunities. Yet nearly a third think that people’s overall well-being will be more harmed than helped in coming years.
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