Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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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.

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  • short reads

    Global Social Networking

    Along with the U.S., three other nations surveyed have at least four-in-ten adults on social networks: Poland, Britain and South Korea.

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    Technology Use Around the World in 2010

    Looking across 16 countries for which trends are available, the median percentage of people who own a cell phone has risen from 45% in 2002 to 81% in 2010.

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    Married Twenty-Somethings

    Only about a quarter of young adults were married in 2008. This compared with about two-thirds in 1960.

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    Love Trumps Money?

    More than nine-in-ten married people say that love is a very important reason to marry while only about three-in-ten cite financial stability as an important factor. The data suggest otherwise.

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    America Losing Ground

    Majorities or pluralities of Americans think the country is losing ground on nine of 12 major issues.

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    Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

    Jobs remain the public’s primary economic concern, and given the pessimism about job availability, it’s not hard to see why.

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    Filibuster Reform?

    Just a quarter of the public knows that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate.

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    Baby Boomers Retire

    Roughly 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65 today, and about 10,000 more will cross that threshold every day for the next 19 years.

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    An Optimism Gap

    Only about a third of Americans in a fall survey expected better economic conditions a year hence. By contrast, in the midst of the Great Depression, and with another downturn in the offing, half of Americans still expected general business conditions to improve over the next six months.

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    Wait til Next Year

    While a majority of Americans believe that next year will be better than 2010, there was far more optimism at the beginning of the year.