One of my favourite sources of information on Consumer eHealth is Pew Internet.  They regularly research the impact of the Internet in various of aspects of everyday life including health.   Given the tarnished “eHealth” brand, I think that there are some powerful messages from a recent Pew Internet study:

http://ehr.healthcareitnews.com/blog/e-patients-plugged-and-waiting-1

Citizens, in my view, are ready, willing, and able to use the Internet to research health related topics.  I strongly suggest that the eHealth community (including gov’t policymakers) make better use of the Internet to inform and to gather feedback regarding eHealth plans and to demonstrate the value that investments to date are delivering.   Check out the Pew Internet study as it contains some detailed data on use of the Internet for health related purposes.

Mike

È convinzione comune che chi passa troppo tempo davanti al monitor del proprio PC sia un individuo solo e distaccato dal mondo reale. Pare, invece, che le cose non stiano proprio così.

Secondo una recente ricerca pubblicata dalla Pew Internet & American Life Project, una società non-profit che conduce ricerche che hanno come oggetto di studio l’impatto che la Rete e le nuove tecnologie hanno sulla società, i giovani sarebbero tutt’altro che “eremiti della tecnologia”. Al contrario, chi svolge regolarmente attività online (come, ad esempio, blogging e social networking) troverebbe la strada spianata nel consolidare e allargare le reti sociali tradizionali.

Questa ricerca, intitolata “Social Isolation and New Technology”, ha messo, infatti, in evidenza come Internet e i dispositivi mobili di ultima generazione aiutino chi li utilizza con assiduità ad avere più amici, ad essere più tolleranti e aperti alle diversità, a migliorare i rapporti faccia a faccia.

Lo studio ha messo in evidenza anche un fattore che in apparenza sembrerebbe essere contraddittorio: la socialità online non riduce affatto il livello di partecipazione degli utenti all’interno delle comunità locali. Gli utenti che usano più spesso Internet sono soggetti che con maggior probabilità appartengono ad associazioni locali di volontariato, a gruppi giovanili di varia natura o ad organizzazioni caritatevoli.

In altre parole, se da un lato le relazioni sociali si alimentano tramite la mediazione di un computer, dall’altro si consolidano e trovano la massima esplicazione quando si spegne il PC e ci si ritrova in compagnia. Le nuove tecnologie della comunicazione, dunque, non contribuiscono negativamente alle attività sociali che si svolgono all’interno della propria comunità, ma costituiscono un mezzo in più per coltivarle e consolidarle.

Se, inoltre, si pensa che proprio grazie alla Rete e alle nuove tecnologie crescono di gran lunga gli stimoli cui vengono sottoposti i giovani, passare qualche ora in meno con la gente che si vede sempre non sarebbe probabilmente nemmeno il peggiore dei mali. La possibilità di avere contatti con persone dal diverso background culturale e sociale, di un’altra etnia, con una formazione di diverso tipo, infatti, non può che allargare gli orizzonti e contribuire alla crescita culturale e personale dei giovani.

Insomma, questa ricerca rivela che la vita delle persone tende a migliorare se si sfruttano le possibilità offerte dalle nuove tecnologie della comunicazione. Per quanto fondati possano essere i timori relativi a questi strumenti (soprattutto da parte di chi non li usa o li conosce poco), non è forse il caso di continuare ad alimentare lo stereotipo secondo cui il computer trasformerebbe le nuove generazioni in soggetti individualisti, isolati, poco propensi alle relazioni personali e privi di amici reali.

In conclusione, Internet probabilmente è pieno di insidie e certe diffidenze nei suoi confronti possono essere anche giustificate; ma tra i suoi lati negativi pare che non si possa annoverare quello di far restare la gente chiusa a casa in pigiama davanti al PC in una sorta di reclusione volontaria.

Che ne dite?

A new study confirms what your 130 Facebook friends and scores of Twitter followers may have already told you: The Internet and mobile phones are not linked to social isolation. Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The study refutes research earlier in the decade suggesting that people’s growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connections. The Internet also hasn’t pulled people away from public places like parks, cafes and restaurants — just the opposite. The study, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points and accounted for differences because of age, education and other factors, also found that people now tend to use cell phones more than landlines to stay in touch with closest family and friends.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091104/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_techbit_internet_isolation

According to an eMarketer article new research has shown that more young people are using Twitter. Pew Internet and American Life Project results show 33% of online adults aged 18-29 use a status updating service such as Twitter.

The 30 – 49 age group, who had previously been considered the core group for Twitter were at 22%.  This coincides with a previous survey from Sysomos that showed 66% if users who disclosed their ages on Twitter were under 25.

Perhaps this is because Twitter and Facebook etc have become part of pop culture with regular mentions on hit TV shows in the US and Australia such as Ellen and Rove as well as being used increasingly by young celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.

Personally I have also found there to be an increasing number of younger people using Facebook. My sisters at 18 and 20 are now heavy users of Facebook, as are their friends, where as before they would only use MySpace. Again this probably has something to do with the increased profile amongst celebrities their age and on TV shows aimed at them. But it also shows an increase in the statistics too.

Check Facebook shows that the highest age demographics using Facebook is 18 – 34. Previously the fastest growing demographic was 35+.

Have seen a shift with MySpace and Facebook as well. Before MySpace was the place to be if you were young now it seems that Facebook is taking over. My sisters at 18 and 20 and all there friends have now embraced Facebook and are regular users. Which is prved in tthenumbers. CheckFacebook.com shows that in Australia that the highest users are the ages between 18 and 34.

According to the report one in five internet user are using twitter or other social network sites for status update

young people are using twitter comparatively more than other age group

for details reports visit the link  http://tinyurl.com/yk7dczh

The panelists answered questions about finding ways to satisfy desires of people to share freely but somehow pay an appropriate price for the information they gain. “Most in my generation won’t want to pay for things because they are used to things being free,” Gyllenhaal said. “Young people will pay for things we use. I guarantee young people would pay for Facebook. It has become that important for us.”

Andrew McLaughlin came into this discussion in support of the principles many, including Chris Anderson (author of “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” and originator of the “Long Tail” idea in Internet economics), have brought to the forefront of the discussion of Internet economics. “Free doesn’t really mean ‘free,’” he said. “We have lots of media now that is free to the end-consumer in exchange for attention or something that benefits someone else. There will be things you are asked to pay for and things that third parties are asked to pay for.” He added it is important to find ways to properly “vindicate intellectual property rights” online and also address privacy, anonymity and authentication in the right way. “I find the ‘free’ debate to be kind of dissatisfying,” he said. “Free to the end-user still leaves you a broad way to pay for things.”

Lee McKnight noted that the issue is complicated. “It’s not just an issue of free and for-pay, there are barter arrangements that come into play as Internet governance has been progressing in these historic days,” he said. “Economic and competition policy will come to the fore… This is a ripe area for policy analysis and discussion at IGF in Egypt and over time as we continue to grapple over challenges.”

Rainie was asked about education and the Internet as an audience member noted how far behind education is in implementing the advantages of the Internet. “Participation matters,” he noted, saying it has been shown that students enjoy the ways in which they can be more active participants in their education when they can go online in classrooms.

McLaughlin chimed in. “The federal government is a disaster when it comes to using these new tools,” he said, noting that it blocks employees’ use of social networks.

“I hope that people less freaked out by these networks and systems will start running things,” he said, adding that every government employee should have a home page offering information they want to share and affording them the ability to collaborate with others in government. “That would drive a culture change that would be unstoppable,” he said, “and you would get the efficient task-oriented government we are trying to achieve.”

-Janna Anderson

Lee Rainie, Pew Internet & American Life Project:

When Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, was invited to be a keynote speaker to set the tone for the first-ever Internet Governance Forum-USA, he was asked to talk about “emerging issues” online.

He wisely chose the title “What We Don’t Know About the Future of the Internet.” His leadership in studying the impact of the Internet for the Pew Research Center for the past decade or so has put him in perfect position to address the topic.

Rainie described four areas of “critical uncertainty whose resolution will shape the future of the Internet” in ways we cannot yet fully foresee:

1) The unknowns tied to the future structure of the Internet’s architecture and how it is shaped by its adoption.

2) The unknowns presented by complexities in the future of information policy (he singled out “the kind of rules we develop about information property such as copyright, patents and trademarks” and other property issues).

3) The unknowns tied to the policies and norms we might develop to deal with our online identities – how we deal tackle issues like online privacy, anonymity and surveillance.

4) The unknown social, political and economic impact of the Internet. “The social science community is just beginning to tackle issues related to the value of the Internet – both good and bad – in empirical terms,” he said.

Rainie said some aspects of the future of the Internet are fairly predictable. “In the next decade the computing power at our disposal will be more than 20 times greater than it is now and considerably cheaper if Moore’s law continues to hold,” he explained.

He noted data storage capabilities will be improved. He talked about ubiquitous wireless communications involving smart devices built into our environment – including our clothes, our architecture, our vehicles and our homes.

Chips embedded in our cars, our household furnishing, even the soil, will feed data to each other and help us figure out how to skirt traffic jams, when to water our flower beds and even when the pizza delivery van has pulled up to our house.  - Lee Rainie

-Janna Anderson

Source

Lee Rainie, Director of Pew Internet Project, describes nine tribes of the Internet. Which tribe do you belong to?

In 2006 over 80% of all internet users (over 113 million Americans) searched at least once for medical information on one of some 17 conditions.  Today that number has exploded.  The number using the internet as well as “social media” is climbing rapidly.  Americans are seeking information about a wide array of health topics: health in general, specific diseases, specific surgical or medical procedures, medications, exercise, fitness, their doctor(s), hospital(s), health insurance, alternative therapies and medications, weight loss, weight control, depression and other mental health matters, as well as experimental and research issues and travel medicine.

The new Pew Study outlined below does clearly show that the internet per se, cannot and will not replace physician / patient direct communication.  That is the reason that while there has been a rush to broad medical data and information being available on the web, the amount of “sure, trusted” content is questionable.  It is often difficult for patients or information gatherers to know the difference between quality content and questionable content.  Companies such as NorthPoint Domain (part of IC Sciences, Inc) have pioneered the use of physician directed content on the web.  Their approach has been to have the physician, medical provider, health care facility be the facilitator of accessing information on the internet about the specific conditions, tests and treatments involved in each individual patients care.  This format has resulted in great satisfaction levels as well as high rates of user access to the prescribed information (“information therapy”).

We believe that the evolution of trends like physician directed information on the internet as well as the rapid evolution of the social web as part of health care will revolutionize health care before our very eyes.  This even as we struggle with archaic social structures used to provide and direct health care.  It may well be that Real Health Reform lies as much in information as it does in insurance coverage.   As the saying goes: knowledge is power . . . obi jo and jomaxx

Americans’ pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources. Whereas someone may have in the past called a health professional, their Mom, or a good friend, they now are also reading blogs, listening to podcasts, updating their social network profile, and posting comments. And many people, once they find health information online, talk with someone about it offline.

61% of American adults look online for health information.
In 2000, 46% of American adults had access to the internet, 5% of U.S. households had broadband connections, and 25% of American adults looked online for health information. Now, 74% of American adults go online, 57% of American households have broadband connections, and 61% of adults look online for health information. We use the term “e-patient” to describe this group.

Change is coming, whether through the spread of wireless devices or generational shifts. Wireless connections are associated with deeper engagement in social media and an accelerated pace of information exchange. Indeed, those with mobile access to the internet are more likely than those who have tethered access to contribute their comments and reviews to the online conversation about health and health care. And mobile access is on the rise.

Second, adults between the ages of 18 to 49 are more likely than older adults to participate in social technologies related to health. As younger adults face more health care questions and challenges, they may turn to the tools they have sharpened in other contexts of their lives to gather and share health advice. But in the end, experts remain vital to the health-search and decision-making process. Americans’ longstanding practices of asking a health professional, a trusted friend, or a wise family member persist as patients pursue good health. These are practices not likely to change and therefore require designers of any new health care application to look not ahead, but to look around in order to see the future.

The Social Life of Health Information – http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/8-The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx

Pew Survey: Health Consumers Find More Help on Web – http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/06/11/pew-survey-health-consumers-find-more-help-on-web/

Medicine in the Age of Twitter – http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/health/11chen.html?_r=2

Guidelines for the Clinical Use of Electronic Mail with Patients – http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=9452989

Online Health Search 2006 – http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/Online-Health-Search-2006.aspx

www.condron.us     www.propeller.com     www.blogburst.com     www.blogcatalog.com     www.clusty.com     www.digg.com     www.wikio.com     www.technorati.com     www.twitter.com     www.bloglines.com      www.reddit.com     www.stumbleupon.com

a zona do Wi Fi

internet sem fio. Até parece blablablá, repeteco, mas é sempre bom bater nessa tecla. Às estatísticas para quem ainda acredita nelas. Um estudo realizado pela Pew Internet & American Life Project, publicado em 22 de julho, constata:

• 56% dos norte-americanos acionaram a internet sem o uso de fios, em suma, com laptops conectados a redes Wi-Fi, celulares, consoles de game ou MP3
• Do total de usuários que acessam redes wireless, 39% entram por seus laptops
• Um terço dos americanos preferiu navegar pela rede a partir de smartphones para enviar emails, mensagens de programas como MSN ou para fazer pesquisas

Vale lembrar que em dezembro de 2007, 24% dos americanos haviam acessado a rede  por celulares.

Hoje, quase um quinto dos americanos usam a web a partir de seus telefones, alta considerável, uma vez que em dezembro de 2007, registrou-se 11%. Segundo o órgão houve alta de 73% em 16 meses, intervalo entre as duas pesquisas.

Como funciona – O relatório baseia-se em dados a partir de entrevistas por telefone realizadas pelo Princeton Survey Research International entre os dias 26 de março e 19 de abril de 2009 com 2.253 pessoas com mais de 18 anos.  A margem de erro é de 2,4% para cima e para baixo.

Em inglês – Quer ler mais? Na íntegra, o estudo completo em PDF exatamente aqui.

Parafraseando um grande amigo, penso, logo, insisto. No Brasil, wireless custa quanto mesmo?  Às contas: de graça, onde mesmo? Só se for a doceria de Ribeirão Preto da minha querida Marta Opipari ou algum gentil restaurante que quiser atrair a clientela. De resto, o dono de um computador portátil, o tal do netbook ou notebook, tem de pagar a um provedor 50 pilas por mês. Se for 3G, that means, de um chip de operadora, via seu celular ou instalado no seu notebook, a mensalidade varia de R$ 60 a R$ 100. Barato? Só se for o marido da barata.

Mas chega de reclamar – O dono de um iPhone ou de um smpartphone Nokia, Samsung, BlackBerry etc. etc. sabe que é preciso contratar o serviço de um UOL, Terra, iG ou Vex. E se não quiser depender de um hotel ou cibercafé, vai  ter de escolher uma operadora: em ordem alfabética, Claro, Oi, Tim ou Vivo.

Mobilidade é isso aí. Minha santa mãe costuma dizer: “Quien quiere celeste que le cueste“.

*Bono: Bono wants to rebrand Africa. Remember those pictures of him with those bikini girls? Good times.

*Email: Emails from an Asshole. I get these every day. But from different people. [harper's]

*Robots: A robot rises over Tokyo. Let us all pray that this thing never truly comes alive. [daringfireball]

*The internet: According to Pew Internet data, we just passed the point where half the people in the U.S. go online every day. Relatively speaking, no one donates to charity or listens to podcasts. [waxy]

*Twitter: Rob Walker of the NYT thinks Twitter is all about play. There are a thousand different use cases for Twitter and this talks about just one of them. Is using Twitter as an ersatz RSS reader “play”? It isn’t – well, at least it isn’t if watching TV or reading the NYT online aren’t.

*Panic: Doomwatch analyses news sources to tell you what to worry about now. (Currently: Murder.) [presurfer]

*Movies: The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane reviews Brüno: “Brüno” demonstrates, to one’s growing disappointment and dismay, is a vehemently gifted man putting his body to it and leaving his mind behind.” Previously: A near-review from The Awl.

*Money: It takes over $10k annually to run Neatorama?

*Economy: Noted Doomster Nouriel Roubini thinks the recession will last another six months and that the recovery will be slow and shallow. It once took me nearly three months to recover from a slight ankle sprain, apropos of very little. Related: Check out Damon Rich’s Panorama of foreclosures. [bits]

I  found this [posted on the BHIC Blog for June 11th].

“Americans’ pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources. Whereas someone may have in the past called a health professional, their Mom, or a good friend, they now are also reading blogs, listening to podcasts, updating their social network profile, and posting comments. And many people, once they find health information online, talk with someone about it offline. This Pew Internet/California HealthCare survey finds that technology is not an end, but a means to accelerate the pace of discovery, widen social networks, and sharpen the questions someone might ask when they do get to talk to a health professional. Technology can help to enable the human connection in health care and the Internet is turning up the information network’s volume. [posted on the Benton Foundation Newsletter Issue June 11, 2009 http://www.benton.org/node/25874 ]

Access the report from teh pew Internet & American Life Project “The Social Life of Health Information” by Susannah Fox at http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/8-The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx

The Internet has certainly changed our lives.       How has it changed the lives of those with low literacy skills?   How has it affected the health literacy of those individuals?

Mohney, Doug. “Ipodder good fodder for MP3″ 2004.

“However, the broadcast industry barely has its brain around streaming media. MP3 distribution of popular radio shows is something that they just don’t want to deal with unless they can see a clear profit out of the whole scheme. It’s too bad, because I’d love to listen to a couple of shows more often, but I don’t have the time. The iPodder would give me the time through technology.” This is good as a historical text. Because I really don’t think many in the broadcast industry are anti-podcasting any more. Goes to show how quickly things can change in an online world.

I came across an article refering to a 2006 Pew Internet poll. So I decided to see what Pew Internet had been saying more recently.

Madden, Mary and Jones, Sydney. “Podcast Downloading 2008” 2008.

“Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time. This finding compares to the 7% of internet users who reported podcast downloading in our February-April 2006 survey. However, few internet users are downloading podcasts with great frequency; in both surveys, just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day.”

A Nielsen report concluded:

• 6% of respondents described themselves as regular podcast downloaders, more than 75% of whom were male.
• Approximately 38% of these active podcast downloaders say they are listening to radio less often.
• Some 72% of respondents who regularly download podcasts say they download an average of one to three podcasts per week.

Are there any gender differences in online behaviour and why so? That’s the topic in an article at CNNMoney, even though it never discusses gender differences on Twitter and Facebook (annoying when the title is “Men are from Facebook, women are from Twitter?”). However, I forgot that when I saw that my good friend Mary Madden from Pew Internet and American Life was quoted:-) Check out her work, she’s an expert in everything related to online music! Here is Mary on Twitter.

Photo: briansuda, Flickr, CC

Anyway, the article presents a new study from eMarketer (not available online), which says that more women than men use the Internet, however, male Internet users tend to spend more time surfing the Web than females.

Unpartisan as I am, I think the best quote came from Mary:

“I would say for every situation where you think a trend may be confirming a stereotype, there seems to be another counterintuitive trend that might emerge as well,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

A Norwegian journalist, Hege Ulstein, called Twitter “a lonely and elitist man” while Facebook is “a popular and down-to-earth woman” (my translation). Another journalist, Jan Omdahl, argued that Ulstein not only was completely wrong, she had also insulted tons of women.

Based on my Twitter/Facebook friends, here is my very unscientic impression:

Facebook is filled with men and women, young and old, while Twitter is still dominated by men. Facebook is neutral for me, neither feminin nor masculine. On Twitter however, I see a pretty masculine crowd hanging out. But interestingly enough, that seems to be changing.

Luckily, Pew has done the hard work and dug up the data. From a report in Feb. this year, “Twitter and status updating”, here is the (American) numbers.

Median age of different social media users:

• Twitter: 31
• MySpace: 27
• Facebook: 26
• LinkedIn: 40

Gender difference on Twitter, according to Quantcast (via Socialmediatoday):

• Women: 54 %
• Men: 46 %

When we talk about our impression of who are hanging out on Twitter (or dining. Idaa Aalen has cleverly explained Twitter as a dinner party), if will of course be influenced by who we are following. I followed mostly male geeks in the beginning, but I’m happy to see that the female geeks are also starting to talk loud:-)  To learn about a very advanced and professional Twitter strategy, read NY University journalism professor Jay Rosen’s outline of Mindcasting.

I’m benteka at Twitter.

But why are the kids avoiding Twitter (I’ve got some ideas, do you)?

by Elizabeth Buccianti

Just like any good social networker, I notify my contact list via several online mediums when I post a blog entry. I was in for quite a shock when I read my father’s reply to one of my e-mails – “That’s nice dear, what’s a blog?” Needless to say I was shocked by his reply. I couldn’t imagine that someone in their 50s, who is fairly tech savvy, had never heard of such a prevalent social medium.

As I began researching Internet usage statistics, the information available quickly dispelled any perceptions I had about how many people actually read blogs. According to a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, only 33 percent of Internet users identify themselves as blog readers (equivalent to 24 percent of all adults) and only 42 percent (equivalent to 32 percent of all adults) said that they have ever read a blog. While 42 percent of Internet users add up to a healthy statistic, it doesn’t match up with the current Web 2.0 buzz.

As a public relations professional, I am constantly bombarded with professional association luncheons, magazine articles, Webinars and, of course, blog postings training the PR community for the time when communications will be predominately disseminated via social media vehicles. Many industry leaders have gone so far as to declare the death of the traditional news release. While it would be easy to get caught up in the buzz and latest trends, it’s important to remember that we’re still in a transitional period.

There is a significant population that is in tune with the latest and greatest in online communication, but there is an equally important audience that has yet to catch up. When creating communication programs, or any business strategy, utilizing online communication methods can make for an innovative approach, just make sure your strategy spans all generations.

Jerry wasn’t sure, but he thought he lost it in Bullhead City when he went with Mark to pick up a dandy leather sofa for his church office. Couldn’t find the phone anywhere, even after using my phone to ring his and listening carefully everywhere, and having Mark call his friend in Bullhead City who walked up and down the area where they thought they had last had the phone, and calling Jerry’s number. Nothing.

Well, anyway, Jerry had become quite taken with Mike’s Blackberry, so after spending a couple of days on the phone hoping for a good deal, and actually finding a Blackberry Curve for free, he ordered one of the snappy little numbers. Took a few days for it to arrive, and it has taken him these many days now to learn to use the little beast. Sure is cute, though.

Edit: Friday, April 3

Jerry told me last night his Blackberry is a Pearl, not a Curve. Sorry about that.

When I found the following article I was quite interested, and tried to project Jerry into one of these groups, but I don’t feel I was successful. See what you think.

Almost 40 percent of the American adult population has embraced mobile technologies into their lives to keep up on social networking, twitter, sharing photos, and working while on-the-go. But not everyone in this group thinks being so connected is a good thing, and it’s not the most likely of demographics, either.

Young people have done a good job of integrating technology into their lives, but they are also the ones who are most concerned about being overconnected. This finding is part a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, The Mobile Difference, which discusses how different groups of American adults treat the latest trend in connectivity.

While 61 percent of the adult population is perfectly fine accessing the Internet through a stationary PC, the remaining 39 percent is active in adopting mobile connectivity. Pew breaks the latter chunk into five groups: Digital Collaborators, Ambivalent Networkers, Media Movers, Roving Nodes, and Mobile Newbies. There’s little variation in the percentage breakdown of these groups—Roving Nodes makes up the largest at nine percent of the adult population—though their favorite ways of using technology while on-the-go vary.

Ambivalent Networkers, however, are distinct in that Pew says they have folded mobile devices into every aspect of their social lives. Texting, social networking, entertainment—you name it and this group is doing it with mobile devices of some sort. They’re significantly less likely to watch traditional TV on a daily basis than the rest of the adult population (24 percent, versus 79 of all adults), though they do watch TV shows on on non-TV devices more than any other group. Additionally, 66 percent of this group performs at least one non-voice activity on their cell phones per day, the highest of all the groups, and 91 percent of this group relies on their cell phones for all of their calls.

Despite this heavy reliance on technology, Ambivalent Networkers—primarily 20-somethings, and 60 percent male—didn’t actually “like” this level of availability as much as everyone else. Only 31 percent strongly agreed that they liked being so accessible, compared to the sample’s average of 47 percent and near the bottom for all groups. More than half of Ambivalent Networkers agreed that taking a break is definitely a good idea, which was (surprisingly) ten percentage points above the average from other groups.

I found the article here. Strange thing when we’re speaking of modern technology; the link in the main article above is a 404 page!

And guess what! Yesterday, I found Jerry’s old phone…in the trunk of our Jeep. It was mixed in with some tools and cords he had been using at the church; seems it was turned off, so that it didn’t ring when Jerry was scouting about for it.

I overheard Jerry on his phone yesterday telling someone he has 30 days in which he can return the Blackberry with no penalties for his upgraded services. We’ll see, I suppose. This may be Blackberry jam after all.

The 24-hour news cycle has dramatically altered how we process and consume news and information. Our expanded media ecology means  news outlets can push these news cycles into multiple devices and formats, such as television, online, or hand held devices. Sources like CNN seem ubiquitous and their messages permeate society. Consumers may not be aware of the effects as news watchers and information gatherers; we may simply collect bits of information from CNN without thinking about the stories and the context. It could also be said that the different sources of media ecology provide various resources for independent thought and information away from media giants. resources such as iReport means consumers can also participate with CNN’s news cycle.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projects’ “The New News Media-scape” demonstrates how changes in media ecology have affected how we gather and participate with information from news sources.

According to Facebook’s demographic data, adults are now the fastest growing group of users on the network. The Pew Internet and American Life Project results support this; during the last quarter of 2008, one of Facebook’s fastest growing demographic groups was females aged 55 and over. Their December 2008 research also shows that, among adults, social networking use has quadrupled in the last three years, and that roughly 35% of adults now have profiles on social networks.

It’s clear that social media use can no longer be viewed as peripheral, youth activity. The services are used by people of all ages and have become part of the everyday, everywhere. Over time, social media will only become more pervasive and a critical factor in the success of any non-for-profit communications and marketing effort.