Report: Half of Americans Are Now Social Networkers

The percentage of adult Internet users using sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn is now 65 percent, up from 61 percent a year ago, according to a report released Friday by the Pew Research Center. Accounting for the percentage of adults who don’t use the Internet at all, that still means that half of all Americans now use social networking sites, Pew researchers said.

The number of Americans using such sites has exploded since 2005, when Pew found that just 8 percent of Internet users, or about 5 percent of all adult Americans, said they did. The percentage of Internet users saying they use social networking sites has more than doubled since 2008, when 29 percent of respondents said they were using them, according to the Pew survey.

Pew reported that women aged 18 to 29 are the most voracious users of social networking sites, with 89 percent of Internet users in that group participating in such sites and 69 percent of them reporting that they do so daily. Accounting for all age groups, 69 percent of adult women using the Internet said they’re social networkers as compared with 60 percent of men.

That’s been the case since at least 2008, the first year that Pew found that more women than men were using social networking sites.

Factoring in both genders, the youngest demographic still remains the most likely to frequent social networking sites, with 83 percent of online Americans aged 18 to 29 saying they visit them. Seniors who use the Internet are the least likely to log into Facebook and similar sites—just 33 percent of those over 65 said they do so.

While Boomer-aged Internet users trailed those younger as social networking junkies, Pew did find that online adults aged 50 to 64 reported the biggest growth in daily use of social networking sites since last year’s survey, with 32 percent now saying they do so as compared with just 20 percent a year ago.

Overall, 43 percent of adult Americans who use the Internet go to social networking sites daily, meaning that the only other online activities Internet users do more are email, which 61 percent said they do daily, and search, which 59 percent reported doing daily. About 38 percent of online Americans said they were daily frequenters of social networking sites in last year’s poll, according to Pew, while just 13 percent were in 2008.

To put some more perspective on the staggering growth of social networking, Pew noted that in 2009, 46 percent of American Internet users said they’d been to a social networking site at least once in their lives, a percentage that was being fast approached in the latest poll by those who said they used those sites at least once on typical day.

The report also stated that researchers found “no significant differences in use of social networking sites based on race and ethnicity, household income, education level, or whether the internet user lives in an urban, suburban, or rural environment.”

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Hurricane Irene: Using Technology to Prepare and Clean Up

Hurricanes are notorious for disabling technology by cutting off electricity. In some cases, the threat of coming storms can overwhelm our phone systems and websites. But technology is also being used in new ways to prepare for and clean up after natural disasters, like Hurricane Irene.

As Hurricane Irene made landfall in North Carolina on Saturday morning, millions of people up and down the East Coast braced for the worst. Despite reports that the storm had weakened, thousands of people were already evacuated and others who stayed on the coast lost power. Prior to the storm, Major League Baseball rescheduled games.  New Jersey even closed casinos for only the third time ever.

What to do?

Many websites offer quick tips and checklists to help before, during and after such weather emergencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers this checklist which helps you decide: Are You Ready?

Advanced technology is used by the National Hurricane Center, the National Weather Service and other organizations to understand hurricanes and their impacts.  

The Seattle Times offered some tips for communicating during Irene and other similar emergencies.  For example: “Cellphone companies recommend text messaging rather than calling in any disaster, because text messages use much less network capacity. They also don’t use much battery power. Using Facebook and Twitter can be tempting, but try to keep usage brief and use the apps rather than web browsers if possible, to minimize network use and battery drain.”

Fox News Business offered these: Apps and Websites to Help Brace for Irene. I especially like their list of people (actually organizations) to add to your Twitter feed, from FEMA to NOAA to the the Red Cross.

 USA.gov offers these tips for recovering after hurricanes.

 Information Week reported on FEMA’s new mobile web app that can help during emergencies. I find this section to be very interesting:

   “FEMA built the application to work even when there is no mobile service so people can access the information they need to anytime on their device….

People can text PREPARE to 43362 (4FEMA) to sign up for monthly disaster safety tips; SHELTER+ their ZIP code to the same number to find the nearest shelter in their respective areas; and DRC and their ZIP code to the same number for information about the nearest disaster recovery center.”  

Government Actions:

  Governments up and down the East Coast have issued warnings, and they are implementing their preparation, evacuation recovery plans. Offices of Public Safety are activating emergency centers and shelters, and information is being sent via a wide variety of channels, including new mobile web sources.

 For those who are not involved in the current Hurricane Irene emergency situation on the East Coast, teams are being sent from around the country to assist in the cleanup. Others are using this as an opportunity to stress hurricane readiness.

In summary, technology can help fight the negative impacts of hurricanes. Governments and citizens can learn the lessons from the past, and prepare for weather emergencies in new ways.

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