The Pew Internet and American Life Project today released the results of a broad survey about civic life and the Internet. There are some obvious findings: People who are better educated and make more money are more likely to be politically active, for instance, and, as we've known for a while, people who find out about a political topic online can be motivated to seek out more information. But buried beneath the survey's top-line results are some surprising, and still statistically significant, results — things that tell us about the role of the Internet in politics that we did not already know. Read More

To reach registered voters on their mobile phones this year, campaigns stand a better chance by recruiting supporters to talk to their peers on social networks, according to new survey data.

While 88 percent of registered voters own some sort of cell phone, according to a survey released today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, just five percent have signed up to receive text messages from a campaign or related group, and only eight percent have used an app from a candidate.

Meanwhile, 45 percent of smartphone-wielding voters have used their phone to read comments about the campaign on social networking sites.

There's a joke quote circulating on Facebook that goes like this: "'Your relentless political Facebook posts finally turned me around to your way of thinking,' said nobody, ever."

The funny thing is, that might not actually be true.

"People whose friends post some (or a lot of) political content on social networking sites are much more likely to say that they have changed their mind about a political issue or become more involved with a political issue after reading/discussing them on a social network (compared with people whose friends don’t post much political content)," Aaron Smith, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, told me Tuesday via email.

Twenty percent of American adults don't use the Internet, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew's survey, "Digital Differences," is a fresh look at Internet access, 12 years after the organization first started surveying Americans about the issue. In 2000, the majority of Americans didn't have access to the Internet, and "many non-users" felt that the Internet was a "dangerous thing," according to Pew.

Now, almost half of those who don't use the Internet say that they don't use it because they don't think it's relevant to them, and they don't want to use it. One in five of non-users say that it's related to the price of access and another one in five say that they don't know how to get on, or that they're physically unable to. Just over a third of those who don't use the Internet say "they're just not interested," according to data gathered last August.

Americans are still tuned out from the check-in. A study released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that a paltry seven percent of all adults have their phones set to automatically tag their ... Read More