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Short Reads

Short-form data and analysis from Pew Research Center writers and social scientists. To view all our reports and publications, visit our main Publications page.

short readSep 25, 2025

A TikTok creator does interviews in New York City's Washington Square Park on Jan. 17, 2025. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)

Among adults under 30, 43% say they regularly get news from TikTok, up from 9% in 2020.

short readSep 17, 2025

Pew Research Center illustration; photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

short readSep 16, 2025

Woodland with Bluebells in the early evening light on the east coast of Loch Lomond in Scotland

short readSep 3, 2025

short readsJul 2, 2014

The Hobby Lobby impact: A Q&A

The U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing for-profit businesses to opt out of the contraceptive mandate in the new health care law has raised questions about what the ruling might mean for businesses, for future challenges to the contraception mandate, and even for the future of church-state law. We posed these questions to Robert Tuttle, one of the nation’s experts on church-state issues. He is the Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion at the George Washington University.
short readsJul 2, 2014

Most Americans think the U.S. is great, but fewer say it’s the greatest

As Americans prepare to celebrate July 4th, 58% consider the U.S. to be one of the greatest countries in the world, but that number has declined 10 points since 2011.
short readsJul 2, 2014

Facebook’s experiment causes a lot of fuss for little result

The controversy over what the Facebook researchers did may be overshadowing other important discussions, specifically conversations about what they really found—not much, actually—and the right and wrong way to think about and report findings based on statistical analyses of Big Data.
short readsJul 1, 2014

DHS: Violence, poverty are driving children to flee Central America to U.S.

The three top municipalities sending children to the U.S. are all in Honduras. San Pedro Sula leads the list.
short readsJul 1, 2014

Wage gap between high and low earners rising most among Hispanics

The earnings gap in the nation’s workforce has widened in recent years as the pay of high-wage workers has risen and the pay of low-wage workers has fallen, but Hispanics may be feeling the impact more acutely than others.
short readsJul 1, 2014

A closer look at who identifies as Democrat and Republican

Looking at the two major U.S. political parties through the lens of our new political typology report shows that neither can rely solely on their staunchest supporters to win elections.
short readsJun 30, 2014

Americans show modest interest in Iraq news, less interest in World Cup

So far, the growing crisis in Iraq has not drawn strong interest from the American public. As Sunni militants extend their control of large swaths of Iraq, 25% say they are paying very close attention to the growing violence and political instability in Iraq. By comparison, 28% of Americans surveyed June 26-29 say they followed […]
short readsJun 30, 2014

The Hobby Lobby decision and the future of religious-liberty rights

The Supreme Court expanded the scope of religious liberty rights in a decision that said some for-profit business could opt out of the health care law’s contraception coverage mandate. But the decision was limited to closely-held business.
short readsJun 30, 2014

7 surprises about libraries in our surveys

As librarians around the country gather in Las Vegas for the American Library Association’s annual conference, here are findings that stand out from our research.
short readsJun 27, 2014

Why the typology quiz questions are asked the way they are

One of the strongest reactions we have received from some quiz-takers is frustration over the either-or choices each question offers. This is a legitimate concern, but there is a reason the questions are asked the way they are: The intent is not to put people “in a box” but rather to understand how their values across multiple political dimensions are related to each other.