Slightly more than a third of online adults (36%) have used a search engine to find information about celebrities, compared with 23% of online adults who report using a search engine to find information about a family member, and just 9% who report using a search engine to find information about someone they are dating. The likelihood of using search engines for this purpose also increases with education and income. While just 27% of respondents with less than a high school diploma use search engines to look up information about public figures, 44% of college graduates do so. Likewise, the segment that seeks information about celebrities and public figures increases from 31% of users living in households earning less than $30,000 per year to 44% of those who live in households earning more than $75,000 per year. Read More

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