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

    Be Good for Goodness Sake!

    Despite American Humanist Assn. bus ads proclaiming “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake,” a 57%-majority of Americans say belief in God is a prerequisite for morality.

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    News To You

    About a quarter of news consumers are Integrators, mixing traditional and online sources of media.

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    Tattooed Gen Nexters

    That’s the proportion of young Americans (ages 18-25) of both sexes who have had themselves tatooed. About half in this age group have done at least one of the following: had a tatoo, dyed their hair an untraditional color or had their bodies pierced in a place other than their ear lobe.

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    Podcasts Proliferate

    About one-in-five internet users have downloaded a podcast.

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    Hajj to Mecca

    Six-in-ten American Muslims say making a pilgrimage to Mecca is very important.

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    Necessary Cars

    Detroit may take some comfort from the fact that nine out of ten (91%) Americans see their cars as a necessity, essentially the same number who said so a decade earlier (93%).

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    No Fences Online

    Of adults online, 17% have searched the internet for information about their neighbors.

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    Family Web Bonding

    A quarter of online adults (23%) have used the web to search for information about their family.

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    We’re Middle Class

    Roughly half of Americans describe themselves as middle class.

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    Boomers See Trouble Ahead

    Although baby boomers as a group enjoy higher median household incomes than do younger or older adults, some 55% say it is likely that their incomes will not keep up with the cost of living over the next year, a higher proportion than among either younger Americans (44%) or older ones (43%).