American Trends Panel

For many Americans, cellphones are always present and rarely turned off. This creates new social challenges, as people believe that different public and social settings warrant different sensitivities for civil behavior.

Americans are more likely to get news on Twitter and Facebook than ever before. Our new study explores the similarities and differences in the role of news on these two social networks.

Millennials rely on Facebook for their political news, while Baby Boomers turn to local TV. And while Millennials are less engaged with political news, they trust news sources as much as older generations do.

Among the most striking trends in the field of survey research in the past two decades is the shift from interviewer-administered to self-administered surveys. Fueled by the growth of the internet, self-administration as a survey mode presents a mixture of opportunities and challenges to the field.

Many hope that more transparency and data sharing will help journalists, make officials more accountable and improve decisions. But very few think agencies are doing a great job of providing useful data.

In early 2014, Pew Research Center set out to build a probability-based panel – the American Trends Panel – to supplement our traditional method of data collection in the U.S. – the random digit dial (RDD) telephone survey. Here's how we built and managed the panel, and what we learned from it in 2014.

Pew Research Center methodologists examine the efficacy of intensive data collection with a probability-based panel and the differences in participation and responses when using a smartphone app as opposed to a web browser for a study of smartphone use.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now own a smartphone. 19% of Americans rely to some extent on a smartphone for internet access, but the connections to digital resources that they offer are tenuous for many of these users.