Selected news stories about the Pew Internet Project and articles citing our data.
America's favorite pastime: Web surfing?
2/16/2006 | 
Coverage
Stokely Baksh, United Press International, Hi-Tech
'“Jolene Troup finds herself surfing the Web during her downtime at work, whether it be checking her online banking statement or her Myspace mail to playing games or reading up on course descriptions on her school's Web site.
"I work at a real estate company and the market is very slow -- not much people want to buy new home construction," said the 21-year-old college student living in Gainesville, Florida, "so I have no contracts to put in, therefore I am bored and the Internet is the only entertainment or interaction."
Troup, 21, is only one of many Americans who are finding themselves spend free time online, turning the information highway into a place to hang out.
"Today's cyber culture is what society depends on now," Troup said. "If there was no such thing as the Internet, the world would be a boring place."
Some 40 million people said they surfed for fun on a typical day during the month, up from 25 million people in November 2004, according to a recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"I think this uptick in hanging out online signals that people look to the Internet as a destination in and of itself," said Deborah Fallows, a senior fellow and the report's author. "People have always gone online very 'purposefully,' doing their e-mail, looking for information, making transactions -- very specific tasks. I think that means that people are now looking to the Web for passing the time -- as place they can go and expect to be amused, entertained, learn something new or interesting, or just fill their idle time."
Many news sites move articles into data bases after a period of time and then offer them for sale, in the process changing the URLs that link to them. Or they require registration. Thus, we provide a link to the front page of the news website and the information necessary to find the story on that site, rather than a direct link to the article.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
