PewInternet.org

Personal. Portable. Participatory. Pervasive.The Digital Landscape in 2013

Knight Foundation April 5, 2013Lee Rainie: Director, Pew Internet ProjectEmail: Lrainie@pewinternet.orgTwitter: @Lrainie

Chelsea Welch Alois Bell

Neo-news

• Spiritual precepts and atheism• Vigilantism• Privacy rights, publicity rights and collapsed

contexts• Minimum wage policies• Corporate social media policies • Employment practices• Nature of public and private spaces

3 tech revolutions

Digital Revolution 1: BroadbandInternet (85%)

June 2000

April 2001

March 2002

March 2003

April 2004

March 2005

March 2006

March 2007

April 2008

April 2009

May 2010

Aug 2011

Dec 2012

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Broadband at home

Dial-up at home

68%

3%

Networked creators and curators (among internet users)

• 69% are social networking site users• 59% share photos and videos

• 46% creators; 41% curators• 37% contribute rankings and ratings• 33% create content tags • 30% share personal creations • 26% post comments on sites and blogs• 16% use Twitter • 14% are bloggers• 18% (of smartphone owners) share their locations;

74% get location info and do location sharing

Revolution 2: Mobile – 89% of adults51% smartphones / 31% tablets

321.7Total U.S. population:315.5 million

2012

Rise of e-reading devices

May-10 May-11 Dec-11 Nov-12 Jan-130%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

4%

12%10%

19%

26%

3%

8%10%

25%

31%

6%

17% 18%

33%

40%

Ebook reader TabletHas either tablet or Ebook reader

Apps > 50% of adults

Series10%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

22%

29%

38%43%

Sept 2009 May 2010 August 2011 April 2012

% of cell owners who have downloaded apps

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

9%

49%

67%76%

86% 87% 92%

7%8%

25%

48%

61%68% 73%

6%4%

11%

25%

47%49% 57%

1%7%

13%

26%

29%38%

18-29 30-49 50-64 65+

Digital Revolution 3Social networking – 59% of all adults

% of internet users

3 big changes

•Networked people•Networked information•Networked civil society

Big Change 1a: Networked individualism

Weak ties

Big Change 1b: It has enlarged networks

Strong ties

Consequential strangers and crowds and algorithms

Sentries

Big Change 1c: Networks gain influence; institutions lose influence

Evaluators

Audience = New media are new neighborhood

What really isn’t so

• Networked life is lonely and diminished

Big Change 2: It has networked information

• Pervasively generated• Pervasively consumed• Personal via new filters• Participatory / social• Linked

• Continually edited• Multi-platformed• Real-time / just-in-time• Timeless / searchable• Given meaning via networks

Big Change 3: It has networked civil society

• More niches• Fifth estate

generates more topics of discussion and arguments

• More alliances (“peer progressivism”)

• More “on the fly” building of personal networks

• More disclosure / less anonymity (privacy)

• More fracturing of people’s time use and attention

• More people and more inputs in decision-making spaces

• More evidence of everything humans do: Love, Hate, Altruism, Stupidity

There are new winners/losers based on networking and media literacies …

… but class still makes a BIG difference in engagement

@poop_strong (Arijit Guha)and Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini

@Poop_Strong and @mtbert (Aetna CEO)

• @Aetna has now denied $118k in claims (in just 5 mos) since kicking me to the curb. Gotta preserve that $2 billion annual profit somehow.

• From @Aetna: @Poop_Strong We care

about our members. We want you to be empowered to be healthy and make informed decisions.

• That’s so sweet you want me to be empowered. Does @mtbert care to empower me by paying my $118K and counting in bills?

• From @mtbert: We paid hundreds of

thousands of $ already. A call is all it takes.

• From @Poop_Strong: Does that mean if I call you,

you’ll graciously offer to pay my bills?

Twitter Conversation, cont’d

• @mtbert Do you think it’s morally justifiable to offer a flawed insurance product that doesn’t cover catastrophes?

• @poop_strong Why do you think the premiums were so low? Don’t you look at your policy limits when you buy other insurance (auto)?

• Tweets from others ‘friends of @Poop_Strong:

• @mtbert I’m concerned that you don’t understand how your industry works. ASU students aren’t given a choice on insurance plans

• @mtbert As a dad, if your kid was in school, got cancer & reached their lifetime cap, what advice would you give him?

“The system is broken. I’m trying to fix it.” – Aetna CEO

Aetna agreed to pay @Poop_Strong’s $118,000 in medical bills

New ASU health plan: No lifetime cap

Meaning of Arijit’s encounter

• Transparency and engagement are important in era of social media – sousveillance and coveillance are part of life now

• The less powerful can bring their issues to public spaces

• Powerful entities can lose control of their message once it’s “out there”

• Conversations can bring calls to action

Thank you!