Pew Research

Pew Research: Bookworms Going Increasingly Digital

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Digital bookworms
Pew finds more readership of e-books, mirroring the healthy increase in tablet computer, smartphone and e-reader sales.

According to the Pew Research Center’s latest survey of American adults (ages 16 and older), ownership of a tablet computer or an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook has grown substantially in the past year.

According to Pew’s year-over-year findings, ownership grew from ~18% in late 2011 to ~33% by late 2012.

[For those who are counting, tablet ownership increased from ~10% to ~25% of adults, while e-reader ownership rose a little slower, from a similar 10% level to about 19%.]

Based on these findings from Pew, it shouldn’t come as much surprise that e-book readership is also on the rise.

Other results in the Pew survey confirm this: The percent of U.S. adults who read an e-book within the past year is now ~23%, up from ~16% a year earlier.

Conversely, the proportion of printed book readers is declining; Pew finds that ~67% of adults read at least one printed book during the year, which is a drop from ~75% in late 2012 and ~78% in late 2011.

Who are most likely to be reading e-books? According to Pew, they’re the “usual suspects”: better-educated (college or greater); higher-income ($75,000+ annual household income); and folks who are in the 30-49 age range.

No significant differences were discerned in gender or racial segments, although the incidence of e-book readership skews somewhat higher among urban/suburban dwellers compared to those living in rural areas.

And there’s one other type of book platform with some degree of popularity among U.S. adults: ~13% of respondents reported that they had listened to at least one audio book over the course of the year.

Now to a fundamental question: Are we a nation of readers?

The answer to that question depends on your point of view, of course. Some people devour books all the time, while others will do anything they can to avoid reading a single one.

The Pew survey found that book readers tackled an average of 15 books across all “platforms” during the course of the year.

But the median number of books read was just six, leading one to conclude that some people are really, really voracious readers, and they drive the average much higher than the median figure.

Additional findings from the always-interesting Pew research in its invaluable Internet & American Life Project can be found here, for those who are interested in looking through more of the “entrails” …

Election Campaign News Consumption: What a Difference a Dozen Years Makes

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Trends in Campaign News Sources (Pew Surveys)One of the interesting aspects of the U.S. presidential elections that come along every four years is the opportunity to see how Americans are getting their political news. That’s because the Pew Research Center for People & the Press conducts a survey every presidential election year to find out those very behaviors.

The 2012 survey of ~1,500 voting-age Americans older was fielded earlier this year. It found that fewer people are following news about the campaign compared to four years ago.

That’s hardly surprising, given that the “heady and hopeful” campaign rhetoric of 2008 has given way to nothing more than a long, hard slog in 2012. 

What’s more interesting is to see how campaign news consumption behaviors have changed.

If we compare survey results this year against those of 2000 – a dozen years ago – it quantifies what many suspect has been happening: a big decline in traditional news sources like newspapers and network news in favor of the Internet.

In response to Pew’s question as to where consumers are regularly getting their campaign news, here are the comparisons between 2000 and 2012:

  • Cable TV news: Rose from 34% in 2000 to 36% in 2012
  • Internet: Jumped from 9% to 25%
  • Local TV news: Declined from 48% to 32%
  • Network news: Declined from 45% to 26%
  • Local newspaper: Dropped from 49% to just 20%

[Interestingly, the Internet as a source for campaign news has actually leveled off since 2008, when 24% reported it being a regular source for news. In the previous four-year cycle, that source had doubled in popularity.]

The most popular Internet sources for campaign news are the usual suspects:

  • CNN: ~24%
  • Yahoo: ~22%
  • Google: ~13%
  • Fox News: ~10%
  • MSN: ~9%
  • MSNBC (NBCNews): ~8%

But what about social media, the newest kid on the block when it comes to news sources? The Pew survey reveals that social media are being used by a pretty limited audience for presidential politics: ~20% report that they regularly or sometimes receive campaign information from Facebook, and only ~5% say the same about Twitter.

More details on the Pew survey – perhaps more than you ever wanted to know – can be found here.

Asian-Americans Set the Pace

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Asian Americans setting the pace in education, income and career success, according to the Pew Research CenterAs an American with Asian relatives in my family, I’ve witnessed first-hand how having a strong work ethic and a dedication to industriousness leads to success here on our shores.

And now a new Pew Research Center study demonstrates that the anecdotal evidence of our family reflects a larger reality.

Bottom-line, Asian Americans are not only the fastest-growing racial group in the USA today, they’re also the best-educated, highest-income segment.

According to the Pew research, Asian-Americans are also more satisfied with their lives compared to the general public … as well as more satisfied with their own personal finances and the overall direction of the country.

Other questions on the Pew survey reveal that Asian-Americans place more value than other Americans in time-tested values like parenting, marriage, hard work and career success.

But they’re also distinctly “21st century” … in that they’re the most likely of any major group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial or ethnic lines.

The findings of the Pew survey are even more interesting when we realize that the U.S. Asian population remains majority-immigrant – nearly 75%, in fact. Asian-Americans now represent almost 6% of the U.S. population, some ~18 million people. That’s up from less than 1% of the population in 1965.

The Pew study contains interesting income and education demographics that place Asian-Americans above all other groups. But the research also addressed attitudinal measures and found that most Asian-Americans believe the United Sates is better than their country of origin in a variety of quality-of-life factors, including:

  • The opportunity to “get ahead” (~73% in USA versus ~5% in country of origin)
  • The freedom to express political views (~69% vs. ~3%)
  • Treatment of the poor (~64% vs. ~9%)
  • Conditions for raising children (~62% vs. ~13%)
  • The freedom to practice religion (~52% vs. ~7%)

Opinion is mixed in one attribute: “the moral values of society.” In this case, ~34% of Asian-American respondents believe that the United States does better, compared to ~28% who give the edge to their country of origin.

And in one big measure – “the strength of family ties” – the U.S. falls way behind: Only ~14% perceive the U.S. does better in this attribute, while a whopping ~56% give the nod to their country of origin.

The Pew report provides a fascinating snapshot of the current situation characterizing the Asian-American experience.  More details from the Pew Research report can be found here.

Is our hyper-connected world changing us for the better, or the worse? Pew looks for answers.

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One of the great questions about the digital and interactive age is how it may be affecting the way people fundamentally think and behave.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has been studying this question, too. In late 2011, Pew queried a group of technology experts and stakeholders and asked them to prognosticate on the impact of hyper-connectivity on today’s younger generation.

It is the fifth in a series of surveys conducted by Pew on “The Future of the Internet.”

The question posed to these experts was: Looking out to the year 2020, will the younger generation’s “always-on” connection to people and information turn out to be a net positive or a net negative?

And the consensus response to this question is … no consensus at all. In fact, the experts broke down in roughly equal camps on either side of the issue.

The optimists believe that:

 The brains of teens and young adults will be “wired” differently from their older counterparts … but this will yield positive results.

 They will not suffer any notable shortcomings as they cycle quickly through work-related and personal tasks.

 They will be more adept at finding answers to questions, and will be learning more precisely because they can search effectively and access collective information in cyberspace.

An equal proportion of experts holds a decidedly less optimistic view of the future. Their opinion is closer to this:

 Even though teens and young adults will be “wired” differently than their older counterparts, they will not become more knowledgeable as a result.

 They will use cyberspace not to become better informed, but to be “faster” informed.

 Instead of becoming better educated and better informed, they will depend on the Internet and mobile devices to deliver quick results, with little retention, introspection or further study.

 They will spend most of their energy sharing short social messages, being entertained, and being distracted away from a deep engagement with knowledge and with people.

Here’s a link to the Pew report summary, and the results are well worth reviewing.

As for my own view, it seems to me that the environment we’ll see in 2020 is probably somewhere in between these two posts.

It’s true that many people will interact with digital technology in ways that have little to do with any sort of hard, intellectual labor. But is that so different from what we’ve seen in society in general over the past half-century?

There are thought leaders. There are thought consumers. And then there are the clueless. The digital tools and techniques people choose to use just make it easier to play in whatever league they wish.

It reminds me of that old adage about the three types of people found in the world: Those who make things happen … those who watch things happen … and those who wonder what happened. (And there are precious few people who fall into the first group.)

The fact is, no degree of Internet connectivity and social interactivity is going to change fundamental human nature. It doesn’t matter whether we’re hyper-connected or not.

… But let’s hear some different perspectives from others …

The Continuing Slide in Newspaper Advertising

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Continuing declines in newspaper advertising revenues
Industry practitioners were hoping to stem the decline in newspaper advertising revenues in 2011. Alas, it was not to be ...
The hoped-for uptick in newspaper advertising has yet to materialize. In fact, the Newspaper Association of America’s just released final statistics for 2011 advertising revenues show a significant continuing decline in ad revenues rather than a leveling off, as some industry practitioners had hoped.

Overall advertising revenue dropped ~7% during the year. The print portion was off by more than 9%, while digital advertising revenues weren’t able to offset those losses; they rose only a modest ~7%.

Translated into dollars, newspaper industry ad revenues were just shy of $24 billion. If you add in other sources of income from things like contract printing, the total revenues for 2011 were about $35 billion for the entire industry in the United States.

Compare that figure to Google’s revenues for 2011: ~$38 billion.

That is correct. One single company – one that wasn’t even in business 15 years ago – chalked up more revenues than all of America’s 2,000+ daily and weekly newspapers put together.

Looking past the decline in print ad revenues is the sluggish pace of digital ad revenue growth, which has come nowhere close to replacing print advertising revenues. For every $1 gained in digital advertising, $7 in print advertising is lost.

A recent Project for Excellence in Journalism study by the Pew Research Center concludes that slow culture change at newspapers is partially responsible for the problem, not simply changing news consumption habits among consumers of all ages. The analysis from Pew and others contends that the prognosis remains bleak for the newspaper companies, even as the U.S. slowly climbs out of the economic doldrums.

From the vantage point of a few more years to see how consumer behaviors have evolved, it now seems quite likely that we’re headed to a two tiered structure in the newspaper industry: Strongest at the top with a few papers with truly national circulation (The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today) … and also somewhat strong at the bottom with hyper-local papers that deliver news to an audience that finds it difficult to access it from other sources. (High school sports stories are always a hit.)

Everything in between? Unfortunately for them, it’s going to continue to be a major struggle. And is there even a light at the end of the tunnel?

Pew Monitors Changing Views about the News Media

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News media organizations losing luster with Americans
News organizations are losing their luster with Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center for People and the Press has been surveying American adults since 1985 about their views of the news media.

A new comprehensive report, incorporating results up to and including field surveys conducted in 2011, finds that negative opinions about the performance of news media are higher than ever on nine of twelve key measures studied.

Here are some sobering stats from this year’s consumer pulse:

 ~66% of respondents believe that news stories are often inaccurate
 ~77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side over another politically
 ~80% believe that news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations

The findings on the accuracy of news reporting are particularly striking. As few as four years ago, ~39% of respondents felt that news organizations “mostly get the facts straight” while ~53% believed that the news stories were “often inaccurate.”

Today’s those numbers look more depressing: Only ~25% say that news organizations tend to get the facts straight, while ~66% contend that news stories are often inaccurate.

[Of course, when it comes to respondents’ own preferred news outlets, the figures don’t look nearly as dismal. In fact, nearly two thirds of the respondents believe their preferred news sources get the facts mostly correct.]

Who does the public see as the leading “news media” these days? Cable TV organizations clearly lead in the rankings, with network news now pushed down the list:

 ~43% named CNN as a “news organization”
 ~39% named Fox News
 ~18% named NBC News
 ~16% named ABC News
 ~12% named CBS News
 ~12% named MSNBC
 ~10% named local TV news

It’s been a long fall for CBS News in particular, which was once considered the ace news broadcast network in the United States.

In general terms, who do people trust most as a source of news? The answer may be surprising to some: Top-ranked are local news organizations:

 Local news organizations: ~69% of people have “a lot” or “some” trust
 National news organizations: ~59%
 State government: ~51%
 Presidential administration: ~50%
 Federal government agencies: ~44%
 Business corporations: ~41%
 U.S. Congress: ~37%
 Political candidates: ~29%

And as far as where people go for news, TV and the Internet continue to be the top two sources. But consider how those rankings have changed. Five years ago, TV was cited by 74% of survey respondents as one of the two top news sources … but that figure has now declined to ~66%.

As for the Internet, it’s grown from ~24% saying it’s a top-two source for news in 2007, to ~43% today.

Meanwhile, newspapers are staying on the decline … so that today, only ~31% of respondents place them among the two top sources of news. Newspapers continue to have their partisans among the over-65 age segment, but younger than this, it’s just a lost cause.

But there’s one bright spot for newspapers: They continue to be recognized as a leading source of local news. This helps explain why many small-town and local papers have been better able to navigate the choppy waters of newspaper publishing better than their big-city counterparts.

There are many more interesting findings outlined in the latest Pew news organization survey. For more details, click here.

The Twitter Machine: Keeping Hype Alive

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Americans' Twitter usage isn't getting anywhere near Facebook'sI’ve blogged before about Twitter’s seeming inability to break out of its “niche” position in communications. We now have enough time under our belt with Twitter to begin to draw some conclusions rather than simply engage in speculation.

Endlessly hyped (although sometimes correctly labeled as a revolutionary communications tool – see the North African freedom movements) the fact is that Twitter hasn’t been adopted by the masses like we’ve witnessed with Facebook.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project estimates that fewer than 10% of American adults who are online are Twitter users. That equates to about 15 million Americans, which is vastly lower than Twitter’s own claims of ~65 million users.

But whether you choose to believe the 15 million or the 65 million figure, it’s a far cry from the 150+ million Americans who are on Facebook – which represents about half of the entire American population.

You can find a big reason for Pew’s discrepancy by snooping around on Twitter a bit. It won’t take you long to find countless Twitter accounts that are bereft of any tweet activity at all. People may have set their acount up at one time, but long ago lost interest in using the platform – if indeed they ever had any real Twitter zeal beyond “follow-the-leader.” (“Everybody’s going on Twitter … shouldn’t I sign up, too?”)

This is the purest essence of hype: generating a flurry of interest that quickly dissipates as the true value (or lack thereof) is discerned by users.

Of course, Twitter does have its place. Some brands find the platform to be a good venue for announcing new products and sales deals. And it doesn’t take long for the best of those deals promoted on Twitter to leech their way into the rest of the online world.

Other companies – although far fewer – are using Twitter as a kind of customer service discussion board.

And as we all know, celebrities l-o-v-e their Twitter accounts. What a great, easy way to generate an endless stream of sound-bite information about their favorite topic: themselves.

Analyses of active Twitter accounts have shown that a sizable chunk of the activity is made up of media properties and brands tweeting each other … a lot of inside-the-park baseball.

What’s missing from the equation is the level of “real people” engagement one can find on Facebook in abundance … and maybe soon on Google+ as well. That’s real social interaction – in spades.

Actually, you mightn’t be too far off the mark if you deduced that Twitter is the digital equivalent of a bunch of industry insiders at a cocktail party … saying little of real importance while trying to appear “impressive” and “hip” at the same time.

But who’s being fooled by that?

How Are Social Media Behaviors Changing?

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Social mediaWith the steady growth of social networking sites – particularly Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – the characteristics and behaviors of their users continue to evolve.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has been studying these changes in recent years through conducting a variety of consumer research surveys, and its lateest findings have just been released. And some of these key findings are quite revealing.

For starters, Pew finds that nearly eight in ten Americans are now using the Internet. Of these, nearly 60% are also using at least one social media site. And social media users now skew more heavily female (~56%), which represents something of a shift in recent years.

The Pew research also finds that among those people who engage with social media sites, Facebook is the 500 pound gorilla; more than nine in ten respondents reported that they are on Facebook, compared to only ~18% who are on LinkedIn and an even smaller ~13% who are on Twitter.

Moreover, engagement with Facebook is at a higher level. About half of the Facebook users report that they are on Facebook every day. By contrast, only one-third of Twitter users engage with that social media platform on a daily basis.

The Pew study also found that the average number of Facebook friends a user has is nearly 230 – a figure that frankly surprised me a bit. What constitutes “friends” break down as follows:

 Friends from high school: ~22%
 Extended family members: ~12%
 Coworkers: ~10%
 Friends from college: ~9%
 Immediate family members: ~8%
 People from affinity groups: ~7%
 Neighbors: ~2%

Interesting, on average about 10% of Facebook users’ friends are people that they’ve never actually met, or met only once.

Another interesting finding from the Pew survey is that Facebook users tend to be more trusting of others and more active in the extent of their social interaction on a personal level. This would seem to refute the notion that Facebookers may be more susceptible to pursue “cyber” relationships in lieu of old-fashioned personal relationships. To the contrary, the Pew report observes:

“The likelihood of an American experiencing a deficit in social support, having less exposure to diverse others, not being able to consider opposing points of view, being untrusting, or otherwise being disengaged from their community and American society generally is unlikely to be a result of how they use technology.”

And what about LinkedIn? Clearly, it operates on a completely different plane than Facebook and even Twitter. It has become the de facto Human Resources clearinghouse on the Web … an employment fair on steroids.

LinkedIn’s unique position in the social media sphere is reflected in characteristics like the educational level of its users. Whereas only ~20% of Facebook users have a four-year college degree – and just ~15% have post-graduate education – those percentages on LinkedIn are ~37% and ~38% respectively. (Twitter’s educational demographics are nearly identical to Facebook’s.)

LinkedIn’s age demographics also tend to skew older. This means is that even though LinkedIn users may not be engaging with the platform on a daily basis — in fact, only ~6% do so according to the Pew survey — they do represent a highly attractive professional audience that offers good potential for many companies in marketing their products and services.

Additional information on the Pew Research survey findings is available here. Check it out and see if your own social media behaviors mirror the Pew market findings.

U.S. Workforce Trends: Revenge of the Gray-Hairs

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A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends unit reveals that when it comes to working, U.S. senior citizens aren’t ready to leave the stage. Instead, they’re staying on for encore after encore.

Incredibly, the Pew study forecasts that nearly 95% of the growth of the American labor force over the next eight years will be among workers age 55+.

What’s behind this interesting demographic development – one that has actually been taking shape for some time now? I think it’s three things:

Americans are living longer and staying healthier longer
Most seniors wish to stay active and productive as long as possible
The economic climate

This last factor has been particularly acute with the current recession that has caused the loss of retirement investment balances and real estate values. This is underscored in the Pew survey, where nearly two thirds of workers in their 50s reported that they might need to push back their expected retirement date because of the current economic conditions.

But the Pew study also makes clear that once the recession lifts, it’s highly unlikely that the aging of the workforce will reverse. That’s because many seniors find that working satisfies fundamental social needs like “being with other people” (56%), “feeling useful” (68%), and “giving me something to do” (57%).

By contrast, the other workers surveyed by Pew (ages 16 to 64) see themselves working “to support myself and my family” (88%), “live independently” (78%), and “to qualify for a pension or Social Security” (65%).

All of which proves that as people mature and move through the cycle of life, many of them make a shift in their perspective: “Work to Live” becomes “Live to Work.” For someone just entering the workforce, that might be laughably hard to believe … but the Pew survey results bear it out.

And another takeaway message to younger workers: Don’t expect your older colleagues to exit the scene anytime soon … the competition’s still hot ‘n heavy.