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

    Search: Me

    Fully 57% of internet users have used an online search engine to look up their own name and see what information about them is on the internet.

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    Young Adults More Image Cautious Online

    Adult internet users under age 30 are more likely than older adults online to take steps to limit the amount of personal information available about themselves on the internet.

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    Unmarried Mothers

    A record four-in-ten births were to unmarried women in 2008.

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    Are Americans Rude?

    A reader asks: Do people in foreign countries find Americans polite? A Pew Research survey finds few in Western counties call them “rude,” including just 12% of Germans.

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    Hispanics and the GED

    Just one-in-ten among Hispanic high school dropouts has a GED, far less than the percentages of white (29%) and black (20%) high school dropouts with GEDs.

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    Polling: The Cell Phone Challenge

    A quarter of households have no landline service, posing a large problem for pollsters who rely on telephones to reach potential respondents.

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    Older Mothers

    In 2008, more children were born to women older than age 34 (14% of all births) than to women younger than age 20 (10%).

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    New Media Diversity

    In only one of 29 weeks studied did blogs, Twitter and YouTube share the same top story — a week in June 2009 focused on the Iranian protests.