chapter 10
PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT THE INTERNET AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

Since the advent of the Internet, the Gallup Organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., has polled Americans about everything from their general use of computers and the Internet to the trust people place in online health-care advice. Data from a Gallup poll conducted in April 2003 revealed that 79% of Americans used a personal computer at their office, place of work, or school. A December 2004 Gallup poll found that 75% of respondents also logged on to the Internet at some point during the past year. Sixteen percent of Americans said they went online up to one hour a day, and a full 32% spent more than an hour a day on the Web. For the most part, Internet usage appeared as if it was beginning to plateau in 2004. A December 2002 poll reported that 72% of Americans used the Internet, with 26% of respondents saying they went online more than an hour a day. As a comparison, only 47% of people said they used the Internet in a poll conducted during November 1998.

In December 2003 Gallup also collected data on how online Americans used the Internet. As with surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, e-mail came in number one. Nine out of ten people (93%) responded that they had used e-mail. Roughly two-thirds (65%) of respondents claimed they used e-mail frequently. Checking the news or weather came in second with eight out of ten (83%) people responding that they engaged in this activity online. The poll found that seven out of ten Internet users (69%) shopped online. This number matches up with a "Pew Internet Project Data Memo" by Lee Rainie (April 13, 2004), which reported that two-thirds (65%) of American Internet users over age eighteen had bought something online. The Gallup poll also found that six out of ten (63%) online adults made travel plans and looked up medical advice online. Half (51%) of those polled contacted someone else with instant messaging (IM), five out of ten (49%) played a game online, and four out of ten (39%) paid bills online. A higher percentage of online Americans engaged in some of these activities than in previous years. According to a February 2000 Gallup poll, at that time only 89% of people sent e-mails and 45% shopped online.

In "Internet Use: What's Age Got to Do with It?" Linda Lyons calls attention to the discrepancy in Internet use between adults aged eighteen to forty-nine and those over fifty (Gallup Organization, March 16, 2004). The report, which employed aggregated data from 2002 and 2003, reveals that 52% of adults under the age of fifty said they log on to the Internet everyday, compared with 17% of those aged sixty-five and older. Different age groups engaged in different activities on the Internet. Roughly every age group sent and received e-mail in the same proportion. However, 36% of young adults aged eighteen to twenty-nine used instant messaging, compared with 18% of the thirty to forty-nine-year-old group and 12% of fifty- to sixty-four-year-olds. Twenty-six percent of those thirty to forty-nine paid their bills online, compared with the 9% of those over fifty. Surprisingly, roughly equal percentages in each age group logged on to play games.

Other demographic differences exist among those who use the Internet extensively. According to the March 2004 Gallup report by Linda Lyons, a higher percentage of men (49%) went online every day than women (40%). In addition, nearly half of urban (47%) and suburban (49%) people went online every day, as opposed to only one-third (34%) of those living in rural areas. Forty-four percent of whites used the Internet every day, versus 46% of nonwhites, suggesting that the digital divide between races has evaporated. According to "Minority Teens Less Likely to Socialize via Web" by Steve Hanway (Gallup Organization, June 10, 2003), however, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported in February 2002 that whites were still ahead of African-Americans and Hispanics in their Internet use. Gallup poll data on teen Internet usage from January and February 2003 appeared to corroborate these findings to a certain extent. The data revealed that 79% of online black and Hispanic teenagers sent and received emails, compared with 89% of online white teens. Seventy percent of wired white youth also used instant messaging to chat with friends, as opposed to 56% of wired Hispanics and African-Americans. Hispanics and African-Americans, however, sought out information on the Internet just as much as whites (92% vs. 93%) and chatted more with people they did not know in online chat rooms. Hanway suggested that these findings indicate that black and Hispanic Internet users do not have as extensive a network of friends and family with Internet connections as white teens did. The June 2003 report, however, ended on an optimistic note. Hanway pointed out that Internet and computer companies would in the future likely lower the prices of basic Internet access to reach all audiences and that at that point people in various racial and socioeconomic demographics should be online in equal proportions.

E-MAIL

As noted earlier, e-mail is the most popular application on the Internet. More than nine out of ten (97%) e-mail users felt that e-mail had made their lives better, according to a Gallup poll survey taken in June 2001. The data, which appeared in "Almost All E-mail Users Say Internet, E-mail Have Made Lives Better" by Jeffrey Jones (Gallup Organization, July 23, 2001), also revealed that 52% of e-mailers agreed that e-mail was the online activity that they engaged in most. Over 50% said that they had come to use e-mail more often than the telephone or the U.S. mail. Most e-mailers, however, would give up e-mail before they would give up more traditional means of communication. When asked which form of communication they would be least likely to sacrifice, 63% said the telephone, 15% said U.S. mail, 12% said e-mail, and 10% said cellular phones.

Slightly more e-mail users reported using e-mail at home as opposed to work (90% vs. 83%), and roughly half (53%) used e-mail in both places. Most people had more than one e-mail address, which is likely not only due to work and home accounts but to the proliferation of spam as well. In fact, only 23% of e-mailers had one address. Thirty-three percent had two addresses, 14% had three addresses, 7% had four addresses, and a full 22% claimed to have five or more e-mail addresses. People who used e-mail at work sent and received e-mails much more than those who just used e-mail at home. Fifty-one percent of people who said they had e-mail at work also said they check it once an hour, whereas only 6% of those with home accounts checked in on their e-mail every hour. This may have to do with the volume of e-mails received at home and at work. The average e-mail user with a work account reported receiving twelve e-mails per day. The median home user only received eight. As to who people sent and received messages from, the June 2001 Gallup survey revealed that 39% of people traded e-mails with coworkers and business associates most. Family came in second with 33%, and 28% replied that they e-mailed friends most often. For the most part, men were more likely to e-mail a business associate than women were (44% vs. 32%), and women were more likely to e-mail family than men were (38% vs. 29%).

Overall in 2001, women tended to use e-mail more than men did, according to Jones in "Almost All E-mail Users Say Internet, E-mail Have Made Lives Better." Nearly two-thirds (61%) of females who used e-mail said e-mailing was the activity they engaged in the most online. Fewer than half (44%) of male e-mailers cited emailing as their number one activity. Oddly, women were more likely than men to be willing to give up e-mail. Fifteen percent of men responded that they were less willing to give up their e-mail rather than other forms of communication, as opposed to 8% of women. Other than these slight gender differences in e-mail use, very few demo-graphic differences existed among the general population of e-mailers. As to instant messaging, most adults (58%) said they never used it online. Only one-third of adults reported using IM occasionally.

Spam

As anyone who uses e-mail knows, spam continues to be a growing problem. According to "American E-mailers Increasingly Fed up with Computer Spam" by Frank Newport and Joseph Carroll (Gallup Organization, May 20, 2003), Earthlink estimated that nearly 40% of the e-mail coursing through its system each day consisted of spam in 2003. America Online (AOL) claimed that up to 80% of the e-mail in its network was spam. USA Today calculated that two trillion spam messages were likely to have been sent over all of 2003.

Most Americans were not happy with the amount of spam they were receiving. An April 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 67% of e-mail users reported that spam was a problem. This was a sharp increase from March 2000 when a Pew/Internet poll reported that only 37% of people said they received too much spam. In fact, the problem was so bad that 13% had quit their e-mail service in the year prior to the April 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of e-mail users had considered leaving their service because of spam.

CELLULAR PHONES

As of late 2003 cell-phone ownership among Americans was still rising at a fairly brisk rate. A mid-November 2003 Gallup poll found that some 67% of Americans owned a cell phone, according to "Cell Phone Users Have Little Interest in Number Portability" by Joseph Carroll (Gallup Organization, December 8, 2003). A similar Gallup poll in March 2000 found that only 50% of Americans had a cell phone. The rise in users occurred at a fairly steady rate over those three years. In the summer of 2001, 55% of Americans owned cell phones, and in early 2002 cell-phone ownership was at 60%. (See Figure 10.1.) When it came to choosing a cell-phone carrier, the November 2003 Gallup poll revealed that the calling plan was the most important feature to Americans. In fact, 44% of cell-phone users selected their carrier because of the calling plan. The next most important factor was network coverage, with 31% of people choosing this factor. Only 12% of cell-phone users thought customer service was important, and 5% felt strongly about the features on the cell phone.

Not all demographic groups had equal access to cell phones. Eight out of ten (83%) Americans who earned $50,000 annually or more owned a mobile phone, as opposed to 35% of people who earned less than $20,000. The age group in which cell-phone ownership was most prevalent was the thirty- to forty-nine-year-old group. Seventy-four percent in this age range owned a cell phone. Roughly the same percentage of those aged eighteen to twenty-nine (69%) and those aged fifty to sixty-four (69%) owned cell phones. Only four out of ten (43%) of those sixty-five or older had their own mobile phone.

As the number of cell phones has grown, so too has the practice of talking on a cell phone while driving. Generally, people consider this behavior to be unsafe. Nearly two-thirds (84%) of people responding to a Gallup poll conducted in early November 2003 disagreed with the statement, "using a cellular phone while driving is safe." Only 78% of cell-phone users believed that driving while speaking on a cell phone was unsafe, whereas a full 95% on nonusers felt this way. Despite this sentiment, 38% cell-phone users openly admitted to using their cell phones frequently while driving. Many of these people did not use a hands-free device as only 35% of all cell-phone users reported using a hands-free cell phone.

In mid-2001 New York became the first state to pass a law banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Since then many other states have followed suit. According to "Public Favors Ban on Use of Cellular Phones While Driving" by Darren Carlson (Gallup Organization, July 12, 2001), 70% of Americans supported the idea that their state should ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Sixty-two percent of respondents believed that a full ban should be put into place. Once again, many of those who admitted driving while on the phone seemed to think it was unsafe. Roughly half (49%) of these cell-phone drivers reported that they were in favor of such a ban. Two-thirds (67%) of the general public and half (52%) of all cell-phone users did not feel that the ban would be an inconvenience to them.

E-COMMERCE

The number of Americans who have shopped online increased from 45% to 69% between 2000 and 2004. The

FIGURE 10.1

growth in e-commerce did not appear to be slowing as of 2004. In her commentary "Good News for E-tailers from Tomorrow's Retired Investors" (Gallup Organization, December 14, 2004), Raksha Arora pointed to the fact that e-commerce brought in $17.6 billion in the third fiscal quarter of 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. This number represented a 21.5% increase over e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2003. Arora reasons that as the large American generation born in the post–World War II era become retirees this trend will only likely continue.

The growth in overall e-commerce has been reflected in the growth in online holiday shopping. An early December 2004 Gallup poll revealed that three in ten planned to use the Internet to shop for holiday gifts in 2004. Mark Gillespie reported in "Average American Will Spend $797 on Gifts This Holiday Season" (Gallup Organization, November 27, 2000) that 21% of people surveyed said they were at least somewhat likely to do their holiday shopping online. This figure represented a dramatic increase from 1998 when only 10% said they would go online to buy gifts.

Some differences existed between those who shopped online and those who did not. According to "Online Shopping Grows, but Department, Discount Stores Still Most Popular with Holiday Shoppers" by Mark Gillespie (Gallup Organization, December 3, 2002), men were more likely than women to do holiday shopping online. Age also seemed to make a difference. Roughly one out of ten (13%) of those eighteen to twenty-nine interviewed said they were very likely to shop online, compared to two-tenths (22%) of those between the ages of thirty and forty-nine. Only 9% of Americans over fifty said they were likely to shop online.

Banking

By the early 2000s more and more banks were offering electronic banking options that allowed customers to conduct banking business without ever walking up to a teller. (See Chapter 3.) According to "Banking Customers Still Love Bricks and Mortar" by Dennis Jacobe (Gallup Organization, June 10, 2003), Americans were taking advantage of these electronic services. In a March 2000 Gallup poll, only 7% of Americans reported any experience with online banking. By 2003 29% of Americans said that they banked online from home at least once a month, and 17% responded they banked online more than four times a month. (See Figure 10.2.) ATM usage also increased between 2000 and 2003, but at a lower rate. Forty-eight percent of Americans used an ATM at least once a month in 2000, compared with 57% in 2003.

Due to the high costs of hiring tellers and leasing branch space, banks have encouraged the use of electronic banking among customers as a whole. While Americans have taken advantage of online banking, debit cards, and ATM services, most still make regular trips to a bank branch location. Jacobe's Gallup report revealed that in 2003 83% of Americans still visited their bank once a month on average, and three out of ten visited the bank four or five times a month. In the March 2000 Gallup poll, 87% of respondents said they were bank customers, and 78% said they used the bank once a week. Between 2000 and 2003, the frequency of visits appeared to have gone down, but the number of banking customers did not change. Overall, Jacobe concluded that seeing a teller face to face was still very important to Americans. In particular, when faced with a complicated transaction, people would rather deal with someone in person. Consumers were also willing to pay the additional fees for the added convenience of ATM and online banking where applicable.

E-CRIME

A Gallup poll conducted in October 2004 found that 8% of American households had been victims of a computer- or Internet-based crime. This figure represented twenty-four million people who had experienced such crimes as fraud or computer hacking. This was a 33% increase from October 2003 when only 6% of Americans (seventeen million people) said they had been victims of e-crime. Internet crime drove the overall incidence of household crime up from 25% to 30%, according to David W. Moore in "Crime Rate Steady: 3 in 10 Households Victimized Past Year" (Gallup Organization, December 3, 2004).

Privacy and Security Issues

At the heart of Internet crime lies identity theft and fraud. Most Americans seem to be aware of the problems surrounding identity theft, according to "Majority of E-mail

FIGURE 10.2

Users Express Concern about Internet Privacy" by Jeffrey Jones and Darren Carlson (Gallup Organization, June 28, 2001). Eighty-two percent of e-mailing Americans polled in June 2001 by the Gallup Organization were at least somewhat concerned about giving out personal information on the Internet. The same percentage of e-mailers was wary of the misuse of credit card information provided over the Internet as well.

Figure 10.3 displays the information that those with e-mail were very/somewhat comfortable giving out over the Internet. Only 11% of those who responded were at ease with giving out their social security number, and only 33% felt comfortable with providing their credit card number. Close to 50%, however, were comfortable with releasing their work phone number, street address, and home phone. (Though 78% said they were fine with relinquishing their e-mail address, all those who took the poll were required to do so.) A February 2000 Gallup poll revealed that roughly 88% of people who purchased information or products online used their credit card to do so.

In late January 2003 the Slammer/Sapphire worm spread worldwide around the Internet in thirty minutes, affecting thousands of host computers and shutting down servers of many major companies, including American

FIGURE 10.3

Express and Countrywide Financial Corporation. Shortly after this worm hit the Internet, the Gallup Organization asked Internet users about how the incident affected their perception of the Internet. Nearly 9% of those polled in February responded that the problems on the Internet affected them personally. A resounding 81% said that the viruses either delayed or prevented their getting to a Web site. Many peoples' overall confidence in the Internet was shaken. Twenty percent of Internet users said that the stories of the worms made them less likely to use the Internet, and 47% said they were less likely to use credit cards online.

According to Jones and Carlson in "Majority of E-mail Users Express Concern about Internet Privacy," twothirds of e-mail users in 2001 believed the government should pass more laws to ensure online privacy. In September 2000 Gallup had found that exactly half of all Internet users maintained that opinion. At the same time, however, Internet users in 2000 were wary of the type of government surveillance that could be used to effectively capture hackers or creators of viruses. Roughly two-thirds (63%) of online Americans said they were "very concerned" about government software that allowed law enforcement to tap into Internet e-mail to search for incriminating evidence. Sixty percent of Web users also said they were worried about powerful government databases, such as those proposed by the Department of Homeland Security, that contain extensive information on ordinary Americans.

The idea of corporations gathering personal information online and constructing databases troubled American Internet users as well. Jones and Carlson found in June 2001 that nearly three-quarters (73%) of e-mailing Americans were concerned about companies keeping track of their Internet usage, and roughly the same number (71%) were wary of Internet "cookies" that monitor their comings and goings on the Web. In addition, many (61%) were anxious about their Internet service provider monitoring their use of the Internet and e-mail.

ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA

Since the early 1960s Americans have preferred to spend their evenings in front of a television more than anywhere else. According to "There's No Place Like Home to Spend an Evening, Say Most Americans" by Lydia Saad (Gallup Organization, January 10, 2002), 27% of Americans in a 1960 poll replied that their favorite way of spending their evening was in front of a television. Reading, resting, and entertaining and visiting friends were ranked second, third, and fourth. Television watching appeared to hit its peak between the mid-1960s and early 1970s. A full 46% of people polled by Gallup in February 1974 rated television as their favorite evening activity, followed by the somewhat ambiguous response of "staying at home with the family" (14%), and reading (8%). Listening to music was also very popular in 1974. Five percent of Americans said that they listened to music in their free time, which was the highest percentage compared with all other years.

By December 2001, watching television (including videos and DVDs) had dropped back down to 1960 levels, with only 26% of people saying that watching television was their favorite leisure activity. Twenty-five percent of respondents replied that they enjoyed spending time with family the most. (The poll, however, did not delve into what activities American families enjoyed during time spent together.) Reading came in at 9%, listening to music was at 2%, and only 1% of people replied that they preferred to work on the home computer in 2001.

Hobbies

For years Gallup has also been asking Americans about their favorite hobbies. The 2001 press release by Lydia Saad listed the results for this survey from February 1948 and December 2001. In 1948, 42% of Americans replied that they were not interested in any hobbies. The hobbies that generated the highest response were handiwork, which included everything from knitting to model aviation (15%), athletics and sports (10%), and amateur craftsmanship, including carpentry and photography (6%). By comparison, only 19% of survey respondents in 2001 said they did not have a hobby. A full 33% listed sports. The number of people who engaged in handiwork grew to 17%. Spending time on the computer, which included programming, surfing the Internet, and playing games, was the favorite hobby of 4% of survey respondents.

A September 2002 Gallup poll took a different approach in trying to determine how Americans entertain themselves in their free time. The poll, which appeared in "Does Reading Still Stack Up?" by Jennifer Robison (Gallup Organization, September 3, 2002), asked computer users how much time they spent on a number of activities. (See Figure 10.4.) Once again, television won out. Computer users reported that they watched 2.5 hours of television a day. Using the Internet, however, came in second in this poll, with computer users saying they spent 1.5 hours a day on the Internet. The poll reported that both computer users and noncomputer users spent 1.1 hours reading books on average.

Music and Movie File Sharing

Since the creation of Napster in the late 1990s, file sharing of music, and to a lesser extent movies, has become commonplace in America. (See Chapters 4 and 5.) According to "Downloads Are Music to Teen Ears" by Linda Lyons (Gallup Organization, June 24, 2003), 47% of U.S. teenagers (aged thirteen to seventeen) said they used the Internet for file-sharing purposes. Many of these music files were undoubtedly downloaded from sites and file-sharing networks, such as Kazaa, that were not approved or licensed by the recording industry. When asked if they had downloaded music from an Internet site not authorized by a record company, 18% of adult Internet users responded that they had, according to a spring 2002 Gallup poll. This same survey also revealed that 3% of Internet users had downloaded a movie illegally. If downloading movies could be done quickly and easily, 21% said they would do so.

According to "A New Spin on Music Distribution" by Steve Crabtree (Gallup Organization, July 16, 2002), the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) claimed that music sales around the world dropped 5% in 2001 due to music piracy (i.e., illegal file sharing) and economic downturn. As a response to this loss in profit and infringement of music artists' copyrights, the Recording Industry Association of America began to go after organizations and individuals who were downloading music without the record industry's approval. In 2002 the infringement of copyrighted material could be punished with $250,000 in fines or three years in prison.

Public sentiment on the issue was mixed. A March 2002 Gallup poll showed that 43% of people thought copying songs from a CD onto a computer and then trading songs over the Internet should be legal, and 46% thought the practice should be illegal. Eight out of ten adults polled in May 2002 said that the ability to share music files over the Internet had no affect on their likelihood of buying a CD. A clear majority of adults were against laws that would require electronics manufacturers to make CD players in such a way that music could not be copied. Sixty-three percent opposed such laws in March 2002, and only 32% were in favor. Feelings were again

FIGURE 10.4

mixed when people were asked if record companies should make CDs where songs could only be copied a few times. Forty-eight percent of adults favored this solution, versus the 42% who opposed it.

Teens and Entertainment

Despite the unprecedented variety of entertainment choices available to teenagers in 2003, Figure 10.5 shows that most teens (aged thirteen to seventeen) had adopted the favorite pastime of their parents. When asked in 2004 what they did yesterday for entertainment, 90% of teens said they watched television, according to "Teens' Leisure Habits: TV on Top" by Heather Mason (Gallup Organization, October 26, 2004). Television superseded every other activity by far. Listening to music on the radio and listening to music on CD/MP3 players came in second and third in the poll, with 77% and 76% of teens claiming to have participated in these activities during the previous day. Reading was not at the top of the list. Only 33% of teens had read a book for pleasure. Roughly the same percentage (29%) had read a magazine or newspaper (28%).

As Figure 10.5 reveals, two-thirds of teens used the Internet the day before they were polled in October 2004. In "What Are Teen Webheads Doing Online?" (Gallup Organization, May 6, 2003), Steve Hanway reported that teens' use of the Internet varied markedly. A full quarter (26%) of teenagers with Internet access responding to a January/February 2003 Gallup poll said they went online an hour or less a week. Roughly a third (38%) replied that they went on for one to five hours a week. Most of the remaining teens were on the Internet five hours or more,

FIGURE 10.5

with 7% spending over twenty hours on the Internet. Figure 10.6 displays what teens did online. As with adults, teens' favorite activities were finding information (96%) and sending and receiving e-mail (96%). Chatting with friends over IM came in third, and downloading music was the fourth-most popular activity. A full 73% of those teens who spent more than five hours a week on the Internet reported using the Internet to download music.

Another popular activity listed in Figure 10.5 was playing video games. An August 2003 Gallup poll found that nearly three-quarters of teens (74%) played video games at least one hour a week. Forty percent of the respondents said that they played between one and five hours a week, 12% replied that they played eleven to twenty hours per week, and a whopping 13% reported gaming for twenty-one hours or more. The August 2003 poll appeared in "Grand Theft of Innocence? Teens and Video Games" by Steve Crabtree (Gallup Organization, September 16, 2003). The article points out that many parents and educators were concerned about the violence in video games such as Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto allows players to roam around a fictitious city committing countless crimes. Not only do such games give teens a false impression of adult life, but studies have shown that the games may hinder social development in some teens. According to Crabtree, a study at Tokyo University in 2001 found that violent games stunt the development

FIGURE 10.6

of the brain's frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain that controls antisocial behavior. Regardless, 60% of teens reported playing games in the Grand Theft Auto series. Only sports games were more popular. Sixty-nine percent of respondents to the August 2003 poll said they had played sports game. Generally, when it came to video games, girls played less than boys. The exception was The Sims series of games. Forty-five percent of girls played games in this series, compared to 43% of boys.

NEWS MEDIA

Where people get their news is often a good measure of which media they favor. Figure 10.7, which appeared in "How Americans Get Their News" by Darren K. Carlson (Gallup Organization, December 31, 2002), reveals the ways in which people received their daily news from August 1995 and December 2002. In general, cable news networks, talk radio, and Internet news sources increased in popularity over these years, while the nightly network news programs and the local paper fell out of favor. Evening news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC took the biggest hit, with viewership dropping 19 percentage points from 1995 to 2002. Newspaper popularity increased slightly between March 1998 and July 1999 to a peak of 54% before declining again to 47%. The biggest increase occurred among Americans who got their news from cable, which rose from 23% to 41%. The number of people who said they received their news from the Internet increased from 3% to 15%.

A Gallup poll conducted in December 2004 revealed that some of these trends continued for two more years. In

FIGURE 10.7

particular, the number of people getting their daily news from the Internet increased to 20%. Daily local newspaper readership declined to 44% and daily viewership of the nightly network news dropped precipitously to 26%. Cable network news did not continue its rise, with daily viewership dropping slightly from 41% to 39%. A likely explanation could be that more people are turning away from television in general and to the Internet to get their daily news. In the 2002 report, Carlson pointed out that the Internet was not necessarily driving the established news organizations out of business. Many newspapers put their content online. Networks such as NBC have invested a lot of money and talent into developing Web sites, which received much of the Internet traffic from those looking for news.

HEALTH INFORMATION

Despite the increased reliance on the Internet for health information, it still came in last as a source of medical information. Only 37% of those interviewed for a September

FIGURE 10.8

2002 Gallup poll said that they found at least some of their health advice on the Web, according to "Americans Get Plenty of Health News on TV, but Tend Not to Trust It" by Frank Newport (Gallup Organization, September 2002). The Internet fell in behind every other popular source, including the doctor (70%), television (64%), books (56%), and the doctor's nurse (49%). Generally the Internet was more popular among those forty-nine and younger. Nearly 43% of those under fifty received health-care information on the Internet, as opposed to 28% of those fifty and over. However, the Internet was still the least-used source among younger people.

Although television came in second as a source of health information, Figure 10.8 shows that Americans trusted it the least. Where trust is concerned, the Internet came in next to last with 62% of people saying they trust information on the Internet. When looking at the percentage of people who trust the sources they used greatly, the Web moves to fourth place behind books. This could be a reflection of the fact that the Internet yields higher quality information for those who spend a long time looking for it. The September 2002 poll revealed that media sources of health and medical news tended to confuse as many people as they helped. Forty-five percent of respondents said that they felt more confused about a health issue after reviewing a medical or health news report, versus 50% who said they were better able to make a health decision. In fact, Newport suggested that health reports in the media or on the Internet actually caused more people to go to the doctor and ask him or her questions about health care. Nearly one-third (32%) of Americans said that they question a doctor about medical information they found on the Internet or in the media somewhat often, and 16% claim they ask questions very often. Only 20% of Americans said they never asked the doctor about information they see.

INTERNET AND POLITICS

In 2004 many politicians began using the Internet as a primary tool for communicating with the electorate. (See Chapter 7.) In addition, more and more voters used the Internet to look up information on politicians. According to "2004 Campaign Trail Winds through Cyberspace" by Darren Carlson (Gallup Organization, January 20, 2004), only 31% of Americans said they used the Internet to get news or information about the political candidates in 2000. By January 2004 this number increased to 49% of Americans. As Figure 10.9 reveals, the number of people who never looked for political information on the Internet decreased significantly, while the number of those who frequently looked for political information increased sharply.

Demographic differences existed, however, between those who sought political information online and those who did not. Thirty-four percent of men logged onto the Internet frequently to enhance their political knowledge, as opposed to only 22% of women in 2004. Generally, one-third of adults between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five looked for political information frequently on the Web, but at age sixty-five this behavior dropped dramatically. In fact, only 11% of Americans over sixty-five went to the Web frequently to delve into politics. Income and education also made a big difference. Nearly half of those with a graduate degree surfed the Internet frequently for political information, compared with 16% of those with a high school education or less. As to income, 45% of Americans making over $75,000 a year went online for political news and views, versus 23% of those making less than $30,000.

TEENS AND CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY

According to "System Failure? Teens Rate School Technology" by Julie Ray (Gallup Organization, July 29, 2003), the student-to-computer ratio in 2003 was 3.8 to 1, which was down considerably from 1983 when the student to computer ratio in public schools was as high as 125 to 1. A January/February 2003 Gallup poll asked

FIGURE 10.9

teens how they rated the technology in their schools. Most teens seemed appreciative, with 28% giving their school's technology an A and 33% giving it a B. Roughly one-third (38%) gave their school a grade of either a C or D and only 5% issued their school's technology a failing grade. Some trends emerged among students, which suggested that the students were as much a factor in the grades given as the technology. Thirty-one percent of boys, for instance, gave an A, while only 24% of girls did so. Ray suggested that this may be due to the gender gap in technology. As a whole, male students still embrace high technology more than female students do, and manufacturers of software, especially in the entertainment industry, tend to gear software to male tastes (i.e., plenty of violence and scantily clad women). Another trend that emerged from the January/February data was that students at the top of their classes tended to award more As than average or below average students did. One-third of students in the top of their classes gave As, as opposed to 23% of average/below average students. Overall, Ray concluded that students expect a lot when it comes to technology, and that budget cuts to school technology would likely lead to a lot of complaints.