pew

Pew study: More patients turning to the Web

Rachael was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. After surgery and beginning the onslaught of radiation therapy, she went online to search for information--"lurking," she calls it. What she found was much more than scientific information about her disease.

"Here was a community of ladies who had been there, done that," she said. "A real treat when you are overwhelmed and stressed to your limits."

Now, six years later, Rachael (who for purposes of anonymity prefers not to use her last name) is an active member of health information site WebMD. She checks … Read more

Health and fitness tracker and an arcade shooter: iPhone apps of the week

As we gear up for the WWDC here in San Francisco, the rumors are flying as usual about what we might see during the keynote on Monday morning. Some people say Apple will announce new iPhones, others say we will get a precise release date for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. One thing is likely: We will probably all have the ability to download iPhone OS 3.0 sometime next week. I'm crossing my fingers.

I'll be at the keynote speech to witness the excitement and find out as much as I can about Mac OS X Snow … Read more

Twitter buzz gets a status update

Not only because a surgery conducted via Twitter made headlines the other day, Twitter is all the buzz (again). And it seems as if almost three years after its now-legendary debut at South by Southwest Interactive, the popular microblogging service has reached the second (or third) hype cycle, entering the business and media mainstream as the ultimate narrow--and broadcast--network.

As Joel Comm, CEO of InfoMedia and author of "Twitter Power," points out:

It's like the old saying, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." People who use … Read more

Why Google should move to Baghdad

Regular readers of Technically Incorrect, the Slumdog of CNET, know that we believe that every single piece of research exposes enormous and valuable human truths.

The latest slice of deduction from the huge foreheads of the Pew Research Center--motto: Many are Called, Pew are Chosen--merely increases our faith in research's rectitude.

About 2,260 adults were asked about their lives and almost half declared that they would rather live in paradises such as Orlando, San Diego, and Detroit.

I'm making up the last one, but what seems clear is that there is not a rush of people who … Read more

Print news is fading, but the content lives on

It's been about 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on the back of the Internet. For more than a billion people on the planet, the Web today is an alternate, digital universe that is gradually overtaking the analog, physical world as a source of information and connections.

Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted a survey that rendered two obvious conclusions: the Internet has overtaken newspapers as a source of national and international news, and television, led by CNN, continues to serve as the main source.

According to the Pew survey, … Read more

Pew study: Internet takes over papers as news source

Here I am using my two unread newspapers as a thick place mat for my Christmas Eve Chinese lunch, and what should cross my desk: a new Pew study showing that the Internet has surpassed newspapers as Americans' main source for national and international news.

How appropriate--albeit a little sad for this ol' school journalist who still romanticizes about the days when you could truly stop the presses.

Some 40 percent of those surveyed by Pew Research for the People & the Press say they get most of their international and national news from the Internet, up from 24 percent … Read more

Survey: Keyboards, DRM to become scarce in 2012

Step aside, keyboards, laptops, and 9-to-5 jobs. A survey of more than 1,000 Internet activists, journalists, and technologists released Sunday speculates that by 2012, those quaint relics of 20th century life will fade away.

It's not a formal survey of the sort that, say, political pollsters use. Nor are computer journalists especially known for their prognosticative abilities. Still, the Pew Internet and American Life Project hopes the effort will provide a glimpse of the best current thinking about how online life will evolve in the next decade or so.

Lee Rainie and the other Pew researchers asked their … Read more

New research says technology strengthens (miserable) families

It's a wonderful headline for a wonderful life: "Technology found to strengthen U.S. families."

Technology doesn't allow people to ignore their parents, siblings and pet rats and disappear into their own hugely self-referential, self-reverential world, otherwise known as Facebook.

No, technology promotes family love.

So, at least, say the headlines from a survey published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an organization that "creates and funds academic-quality research."

Because life and love interest me greatly I decided to look at the report, which was prepared by two researchers from Pew and … Read more

Study: Teen video game play closes digital divide

Forget differences in race, income or ethnicity--virtually all American teens play video games.

That's the verdict of a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that renders the digital divide almost nonexistent when it comes to video games, including computer, console and mobile games.

In one of the first nationally representative studies of its kind, Pew's research also asked whether teens are being spoiled for community engagement and politics with video game play, something educators have feared as gaming's popularity has skyrocketed. The short answer: not anymore than they already were.

"Young people … Read more

So maybe the Internet is a cure for stupidity after all

A dozen years after presidential politics first moved online, it's remarkable how entirely unremarkable it is to page through the findings in a newly published Pew report on the Internet's role so far in the 2008 election.

In increasingly greater numbers, adults are using the Web to regularly contribute to the political conversation--if not to contribute to the politician of their choice. And no surprise, that's why three of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination basically declared their candidacies on the Internet.

None of this has been lost on the party hacks managing the Barack Obama … Read more