The Pew study found that only 20% of 18- to 29-year-olds are using the Internet as a regular resource for news about campaigns, whereas 42% of that same demographic relied on the Internet for campaign news in 2008. As the youngsters of America have used the Internet less for campaign news this election year, the 30- to 49-year-old demographic have been using the Internet more than in 2008 as a way to get learned with the campaign news. Overall, though, most Americans are now getting their campaign news from cable news networks (because that’s always so fair and balanced).

Given that the drop in the 18-29 demographic is so precipitous yet the 30-49 group continued to increase, I wonder if part of that shift could be owed to the fact that people who were in the 18-29 demographic in 2008 simply aged into the 30-49 demographic for 2012. If that were the case, then that would also open up the possibility that young people these days, they just don’t really care about the election (yet).

Party affiliation didn’t appear to be a determining factor among Americans who rely on cable networks for campaign news as 45% of Republicans, 41% of Democrats, and 37% of independents all choose cable television over any other sources included in this survey. What’s amusing is that 57% of conservative Republicans claim that there is “a great deal of media bias.” Someone should send out a newsletter to these tinfoil hat-wearing bugbears and inform them that just because a news station isn’t FOX News doesn’t necessarily mean it’s biased.

As for the prowess of social networking sites, Pew’s survey revealed that “very few” Americans are relying on these sites as a means to learn about candidates. Only 6% of Americans said they regularly learn about a campaign through Facebook, whereas only 2% said the same about Twitter. Pew explains, “This partly reflects the fact that these social networks are not used at all by large numbers of Americans.”

Ironically, I wonder how many of these cable news stations are now relying on social media to fetch news stories. Could be a filter effect happening there, or it could simply be that Americans aren’t yet acclimated to social networking sites as a feed for their news (nor may they ever get to that point).

It’s peculiar that cable news and the Internet have both leveled off since 2008. Pew found that 40% of Americans under 50-years-old say they regularly or sometimes learn about a campaign from Facebook. For those 50 and over, only 24% name social networking as a regular source. Given that it’s only January and the long winter of the Republican primary doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon, it’ll be curious to watch if these levels of engagement with cable news and the Internet for campaign news changes as the calendar pages flip closer and closer to November.

Well, that’s not patently true, but the study did find that the average Facebook user “gets more from their friends than they give to their friends.” Wait, wouldn’t the interaction between people on Facebook be reciprocal? How does one person receive more than they give on a site that operates on the premise of sharing?

Turns out that the people termed “power users” are offsetting the balance of the force. From the study:

As a result of these power users, the average Facebook user receives friend requests, receives personal messages, is tagged in photos, and receives feedback in terms of “likes” at a higher frequency than they contribute. What’s more, power users tend to specialize. Some 43% of those in our sample were power users in at least one Facebook activity: sending friend requests, pressing the like button, sending private messages, or tagging friends in photos.

There actually aren’t that many “power users” roaming around out there in Facebook – the study identifies only 5% of Facebookers as power users is all of the activities listed above. Still, these “power users” are unrequited juggernauts of Facebook if they’re able to skew the numbers so much that they’re making all of us normal Facebookers look like self-interested goons.

The study also revealed some peculiar demographic facts about Facebook users:

And finally, my favorite:

Concerning the last discovery, Pew did some confusing yet fascinating data-magic and found that the average person has 245 friends, whereas the average friend of a person has 359. They explain:

The vast majority of Facebook users in our sample (84%) have smaller sized networks of friends than their average network size of their Facebook friends. Even the median Facebook user from our sample with a network of 111 friends sees their average friend as having a friends list that is nearly two and a half times larger than their own (2.4 times larger).

How can it be that people’s friends almost always have more friends than they do? This little known phenomenon of friendship networks was first explained by a sociologist Scott Feld [in his research published in American Journal of Sociology, 'Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do.']. Not just on Facebook, in general and off of Facebook, people are more likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than with someone who has fewer.

That math still doesn’t make sense to me, either, but take the comfort while you can.

I’m a little disturbed by the fact that unpopularity on Facebook, merely as a measure of how many friends you have and not how well accepted you are – is reflective of Real Life. We really are just simple creatures of habit.

This study is full other interesting revelations, many of which would stand alone as fodder for dissertation-worthy material. In the end, the value (among many) to take from this study is that you apparently shouldn’t feel discouraged when you see that your friends’ friends count is much higher than yours. We’re all not as well friended as our friends so sleep more soundly knowing your popularity on Facebook is a lot like everybody else’s.

Of the 1,000 included in the study, 52% of adult cell phone users said that they used their phone while inside of a brick-and-mortar store to help with their purchasing decisions. Of those adults, one third of them used their phone to look up information about a product online, either to check out reviews or to compare prices. 38% of those adults went for a more personal touch, though, and called a friend to ask for advice.

Regardless of how the cell phone was used, one fact is becoming very salient in our culture: we can’t buy stuff without consulting some kind of third party via the use of our cell phone. In fact, the mere presence of a cell phone in a purse or pocket seems to be affecting the way people decide on their purchases:

Aaron W. Smith, Senior Research Specialist with Pew, said, “These findings show that the growing availability of smartphones and other mobile devices has dramatically changed the shopping experience.” He continued, “Consumers are frequently using their phones to make sure they get the most highly-rated product at the best price, and in many cases they are willing to go elsewhere or delay their purchase until they find the right combination of value and quality.”

Indeed, one in five “mobile price matchers,” as Pew has labelled these cell phoned sales hounds, ultimately opted not to make their purchase at a brick-and-mortar store and instead chose to buy the product from an online store. More, 5% of of all cell phone owners actually looked up a product while inside the physical and then chose to purchase it online. Makes you wonder how much incentive apps like Amazon’s Price Check app really did influence shoppers this past Christmas. The app likely wasn’t creating a new shopping strategy in potential consumers but, rather, simply made it whole lot easier to compare prices and look up reviews while you’re standing in a store.

Still, when only 1 in 10 cell owners who searched for the price of a product while inside a physical store still chose to make their purchase at the store, that’s not good news for brick-and-mortar stores. Did any of you out there resort to such scrutinizing shopping practices this past holiday season? Share your thoughts or experiences below.

The results come from data that was gathered earlier this year from a sample of 2,251 adults in the United States. Of those surveyed, 55% of adults actually seek out information about local restaurants before sallying forth into the world to fill their bellies. Among those adults seeking out info about where they may eat, 51% of them used the Internet, which includes search engines, specialty websites, and social media. 31% of people still rely on newspapers or newspaper websites (print ain’t dead yet!) and 23% of you actually still talk to people to get recommendations.

Among the participants in the study, those most likely to get information about restaurants, bars, and clubs were “disproportionately young, female, tech adaptive and upscale in educational attainment, and urban.” You know what that means, ladies? If you’re under 30 years old, tech-savvy, have at least some college education, and live in a metropolitan city then you are probably the one planning most of your dates. So send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for chivalry.

Pew also asked participants how they get information about local businesses other than restaurants and bars so as to distinguish between those looking to wine and dine and those looking to shop (presumably?). Of the 60% of adults who look for such info, 47% rely on the Internet while 30% rely on newspapers (sites or print) and, third most-used again, 22% of people rely on word-of-mouth to find out about local businesses. No distinctions were observed among race, gender, and ethnicity. The significant demographics are fairly similar to those who look for info about restaurants and bars except in this case, women aren’t overwhelmingly seeking out the information more than men. Seems like guys are more interested in planning their shopping sprees than they are eating or drinking or dancing.

As far as consumers most likely to coalesce around local businesses go, they appear to rely less on television as an information resource (the only things used less are radio, newsletters, and mobile phones [as in they call the business?]). Only 8% of those looking for any information on local businesses got information from television. Makes sense, given most of the advertisements are typically for chain restaurants (probably because those are the only business entities that can afford those TV spots). You could deduce that hopeful patrons of local businesses search for information through more direct lines of communication (business websites, local newspapers, experiential recommendations from others), which could be the foundation of building a marketing network in a community of local businesses.

Which reminds me: I need to check out UrbanSpoon reviews about the Indian restaurant across the street before lunch time rolls around.

So what do you use when you’re trying to find out about local businesses or restaurants? Share your info-searching skills below in the comments.

In their first study on frequency of Internet usage among adults since 2009, Pew’s data reveals that on any given day over half of American adults are likely to use the Internet just for fun or for no particular reason at all (most would index that latter activity as “wasting time”). Probably most unsurprising about the results of this study is that the youngest adults surveyed, those 18 to 29 years of age, reported the greatest increase of Internet usage as a diversion on any given day. Part of that increase may be explained with how the younger generations are growing up with greater exposure to the Internet but there’s also likely more accessibility in general to online goodness these days.

Apart from the finding that more adults are likely to use the Internet as a distraction anytime these days, the study also revealed that Internet usage for fun times has increased in a broader sense as well. In fact, the growing trend of adults seeking out the latest Internet memes and funny Twitter posts has doubled in the past eleven years.

Despite the general growth of people regarding the Internet as a leisure destination, two demographics still fall far behind the general population: Americans without a high school diploma and adults over the age of 65. While those two groups have seen increases – and even though those increases are two of the greatest percentages of growth amongst all demographics surveyed – they still are significantly behind all other demographics.

Upon further contemplation of the two line graphs above, though, I do have one lingering question about this data: What happened in 2005 that made the Internet less fun to people?

View more infographic round-ups here.

First up, Pew Research Gives us this infographic on tablet use involving the news:

Next up, here are some interesting facts about sex from OnlineSchools.org:

Here’s one about Women and Mentoring, courtesy of LinkedIn:

MDG Advertising gives us this look at local search:

Infographic by MDG Advertising

Finally, here’s one about Universities’ presence on the web:

Created by: Best Education Sites

5% of cell phone owners use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services like Foursquare or Gowalla, according to the report. 12% of smartphone owners use these services on their phones.

Interestingly, 9% of Internet users set up social media services like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn so location is automatically added to their posts.

“Americans are not currently all that eager to share explicitly their location on social media sites, but they are taking advantage of their phones’ geolocation capabilities in other ways,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Internet Project research specialist and co-author of the report. “Smartphone owners are using their phones to get fast access to location-relevant information on-the-go.”

Smartphone owners, younger users and “non-whites” have higher-than-average rates of using location services, Pew says, sharing the following stats:

• 55% of smartphone owners have used a location-based information service to get directions, recommendations, or other information based on their current location.
• 58% of smartphone owners use at least one of these services.
• Smartphone owners ages 18-49 are more likely than those over 50 to use either geosocial or location-based services on their phones. There are no significant differences among social media users by age in regard to automatic location-tagging.
• Hispanics are the most active in these two activities, with a quarter (25%) of Latino smartphone owners using geosocial services and almost a third (31%) of Latino social media users enabling automatic location-tagging. However, though only 7% of white smartphone owners use geosocial services, 59% get location-based information on their phones, compared with 53% of blacks and 44% of Hispanics.

With the Deals space becoming much more integrated with the location-based service space, I would expect that more and more people in all groups will use location-based services.

Pew Research’s Project for Excellence in Journalism put out its New Media Index, which “is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press.”

What they found was that for the week of June 27th through July 1st, Twitter was absolutely dominated by chatter about Google+. In fact, it accounted for 35% of the tweets with news links. The closest competitor to its dominance was the topic of global warming, which receive 11% of the attention.

“Tweeters were mostly excited about the new Facebook competitor, especially when it came to the issue of privacy,” says PEJ.

What else is interesting about that graph above? Maybe the fact that Facebook didn’t make the top 5 list.

Last week, two noteworthy things happened in the world of Facebook. First, on June 30th, Mark Zuckerberg announced in his Seattle office that the social network would “launch something awesome” in the following week. That got a lots of internet play, but didn’t seem to crack the chatter on Twitter.

Then on July 1st, the rumors hit the web that the “awesome new thing” was most definitely going to include in-browser video calling powered by Skype.

Of course, those rumors ended up being true this week, but some have taken issue with the whole “awesome” description of the Zuckerberg announcement.

Other interesting finds from the New Media Index? Michele Bachmann was all the rage on the blogs. She formally announced her candidacy for President on June 27th.

And as far as YouTube goes – this video of an alleged UFO in London was the top viewed new video.

People sure do love their aliens.

And are extremely interested in Google+ as well.

At least that’s the impression taken from a Pew Internet study of United States adults. Pew looked at over 2,200 Americans aged 18 and over and found that e-reader use is on a sharp upswing. In Novemeber of 2010, they conducted the same survey and found that only 6% of the people reported owning an e-Reader such as a Nook or a Kindle. In May of this year, that number had doubled to 12%.

They also asked about tablet ownership and found that while growing, it is not nearly as red hot as the e-reader. In November of 2010, only 5% of people said they owned a tablet. In January of 2011 that number had risen to 7%. And by May of this year, that number is only 8%.

Takeaway – People are more willing to buy a Kindle than an iPad.

Of course, the line between an e-readers and tablets is kind of blurred with the release of some next gen e-readers. In April, the Barnes & Noble Nook Color got a massive update giving it its own email client, full flash capabilities and even its own app store. In the past, e-readers have simply been tablets with less functionality. But that description may not prove accurate as the capabilities of e-readers continue to grow.

Possibly driving the e-reader craze could be the price wars. The major players continue to offer more affordable solutions for customers. In April, Amazon unveiled its “Kindle With Special Offers,” which is an ad-supported version of the original Kindle that costs only $114 – $25 cheaper than its brother. Barnes & Noble then released the New Nook in May. The New Nook is fully touch-enabled, very small and very light, and costs only $139.

Just days later, Amazon announced the “Kindle 3G With Special Offers” which uses the same ad-supported structure of the Kindle With Special Offers but offered users 3G connectivity. That device costs $164. And then you have lesser known players with good products like Kobo, with its eReader Touch available for only $129.

Even a doubling of ownership over the last 6 months fails to catapult e-readers into the discussion of America’s favorite devices, however. E-readers and tablets still lag behind other devices like cellphones, DVR and MP3 players, which have 83%, 52% and 44% ownership respectively.

Also, only 3% of American adults own both an e-reader and a tablet, according to the study.

Have you jumped aboard the e-reader ship? Let us know in the comments.

The study looked at how audiences get to, how long they stay at (per visit), how deep they go into, and where they go after they leave 25 top news sites in the U.S. Among the key findings is that the Drudge Report is sending more traffic to news sites than even Facebook or Twitter.

“The Drudge Report ranked as a driver of traffic to all but six of the top sites studied. And, more striking, it ranked second or third in more than half (12), outpacing Facebook,” says Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “In some cases, Drudgereport.com is an extremely important traffic driver. While Facebook never drove more than 8% of traffic to any one site, for instance, Drudgereport.com provided more than 30% of traffic to mailonline.co.uk (the British newspaper site the Daily Mail), 19% of the traffic to the NYPost.com, 15% to Washingtonpost.com and 11% to Boston.com and FoxNews.com.”

“In other words, the Drudge Report’s influence cuts across both traditional organizations such as ABC News to more tabloid style outlets such as the New York Post,” the organization says. “What’s more, Drudge Report drove more links than Facebook or Twitter on all the sites to which it drove traffic.”

PBS put together an interesting infographic, further ooking at The Drudge Report vs. Facebook and Twitter:

Twitter’s lack of influence on traffic to the sites looked at in the study is particularly noteworthy. Researchers Kenny Olmstead, Amy Mitchell, and Tom Rosenstiel say, “Even among the top nationally recognized news site brands, Google remains the primary entry point. The search engine accounts on average for 30% of the traffic to these sites. Social media, however, and Facebook in particular, are emerging as a powerful news referring source. At five of the top sites, Facebook is the second or third most important driver of traffic. Twitter, on the other hand, barely registers as a referring source. In the same vein, when users leave a site, ‘share’ tools that appear alongside most news stories rank among the most clicked-on links.”

While Facebook and Twitter are essentially both able to be used in similar fashion, Facebook tends to be more personal, while Twitter tends to be more noisy and open. For many users, Facebook is where they are in closer connection with actual friends and family, which can go along way when it comes to clicking on shared links.

The Drudge Report clearly has a dedicated audience, and has made a name for itself over the years as a brand that audience trusts, which makes it a powerful tool for content curation. Given the very low-key design of the site, these findings speak volumes about influence in news and the significance of content curation in general.

I do think we will see news consumers start to use Twitter more effectively as a content curation tool (both inbound and outbound) going forward, particularly as Twitter puts more focus on getting users to understand how to use it (which they seem to be doing since Jack Dorsey returned).