PewInternet.org

Networked: The new social operating system

Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet Project8.23.12 – Learning 2.0Email: Lrainie@pewinternet.orgTwitter: @Lrainie

Networked individualism

• Shift from tight groups to looser, more fragmented networks

• The individual is the main actor (not household)

• Relationships are more specialized and more fleeting – partial membership in multiple communities

• In organizations, less hierarchy• More freedom; more work

Digital Revolution 1Internet (85%) and Broadband at home (66%)

71%

66%

Broadband at home – 66%

Networked creators among internet users• 69% are social networking site users• 59% share photos and videos• 37% contribute rankings and ratings• 33% create content tags • 30% share personal creations • 26% post comments on sites and blogs• 15% have personal website• 15% are content remixers • 16% use Twitter • 14% are bloggers• … of smartphone owners, 18% share their locations;

74% get location info and do location sharing

56% of adults own laptops – up from 30% in 2006

44% of adults own MP3 players – up from 11% in 2005

52% of adults own DVRs – up from 3% in 2002

42% of adults own game consoles

19% of adults own e-book readers - Kindle

19% of adults own tablet computer - iPad

Broadband facilitates networked information

• Pervasively consumed• Pervasively generated• Portable• Personal• Participatory• Persistent, replicable,

scalable, searchable (danah boyd)

• Continually edited• Linked, dense, multi-

threaded• Multi-platformed /

multi-screened• Real-time and

timeless

Revolution 2: Mobile – 89% of adults

331.6

Total U.S. population:315.5 million

2011

Mobile is the Needle: 89% of US Adults Have a Cell Phone

Teen data July 2011 Adult data Feb 2012

% in each age group who have a cell phone

Changes in smartphone ownership

Smartphones – 46%

Apps – 50% of adults

Teens: Texting takes off and talking slips

Mobile facilitates placeless / placeful, real-time interactions / community

• New points of access to information and networks

• Attention zones morph• Just-in-time searches, real-time sharing and

awareness• Augmented reality• Pervasive, perpetual awareness of social

networks

Digital Revolution 3Social networking – 52% of all adults

% of internet users

Source: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, October 20-November 28, 2010 Social Networking survey.

New media are the new neighborhood

• Helps shift trust and influence to networks• Sentries, Evaluators, Audience

• Helps reconfigure networks and their uses• Bigger, Broader, Segmented, Layered

• Elevates DIY learning• Facilitates rise of amateur experts and

influence of new participators• Broadens access to “consequential strangers”

(Melinda Blau / Karen Fingerman)

A short list of critical uncertainties

• Architecture / code• Information / communication

policies• Social norms

What I don’t know that I wish I did know

• 2.0 version of 2-step flow of communication / influence for the networked age

• Something / anything smart about echo chambers• Quantification of “engagement”• New notion of identity that integrates all this

– “saturated self” only seems to get partway there (Kenneth Gergen) – ditto “quantified self”

• Impact and meaning of just-in-time, just-like-me communities – plus a REAL theory of “virality” and its mechanics

• The Grand Question: Are these technologies of freedom?

Thank you!