New Pew Study

A new media study from The Pew Research Center lays out some interesting new data concerning online and digital news that is not such good news if you work for traditional media, especially print. Yes, the numbers of people who get their news online continues to grow at a fast clip, people are incorporating new technology, from social networking sites to cellphones, into their daily lives. According to the study: "Since the Pew Research Center's 2006 news consumption survey, there has been a substantial increase in the proportion of Americans who get the news online every day. A quarter say they go online for news every day, up from 18% two years ago; a decade ago, just 6% said they got news online on a daily basis."

There is still a major gap between the educational levels of those who get their news online--probably explainable by the sheer costs of maintaining Internet service at a personal residence. As search engines grow more specialized, the study finds that "a growing percentage is using search engines more frequently. Nearly a third of online news users (31%) deploy search engines to look for stories at least three days a week, up from 24% two years ago and 19% in 2004."

The study pointed out several differences between the way young people and older people use the Internet. It appears that more young people follow links to stories, whereas old people go straight to the news sites themselves. To me, this indicates that young people are visiting specialized sites that probably fit in with their own personal viewpoints, using trusted sites to hyperlink them to other stories they think they will like. This can be dangerous as it creates a kind of ideological ghetto, where information can become narrow-minded or singularly focused in terms of personal preference or taste. Younger people are also far more likely to check their own personal social networking sites, indicating they tend to use the Internet more for social reasons, than news gathering.

One of the most interesting aspects of the study, I thought, was the huge number of people who go online while at work. Shockingly, the study finds that "More than four-in-ten full-time and part-time workers (44%) say they regularly go online from their place of work. There are substantial education and income gaps among those who go online from work and those who do not: three-quarters of those who have attended graduate school say they go online from work, nearly four times the proportion among those with no more than a high school education (20%). And while 66% of those with family incomes of $100,000 or more go online from work, just 20% of those with incomes of less than $30,000 do so."
It makes one wonder how much productivity is being lost in the workplace, and why more businesses haven't restricted Internet use at work. It also may point to the fact that although white collar workers make more money, they tend to work less than blue collar workers. Not that it comes as a big surprise, considering many blue collar jobs are more labor intensive.
It appears that people at work have begun to fetishize the news like it was a soap opera, or lifeline to the outside world more likely--a break from the doldrums of cubicle life. The study shows that 56% who go online for news from work admit that this is not a necessary part of their jobs.